DHU Duffy

[j.sabourn]

With a deck crew on a Lascar crewed ship you had a right mixture of names and so called duties , kalassi 1 and 2 were the two grades of seamen. Winch wallah there could be more than one drove the deck winches , the deck topaz swept the decks and cleaned the toilets he was usually an untouchable, The Serang led this motley crew with his henchmen the Tindal the bosuns mate , and the Cassab the storekeeper. The ships carpenter usually Chinese or Indian seemed to have a distance between him and the rest of them , the same as the Secunnys the QMs who only did bridge and gangway duties. They all came from Bombay together with the proper paperwork and fingerprints which was what they used for signatures . The cooks of which there could be different ones for different departments were called Bhandarrys , and the Chief Steward was the Butla , stewards were stewards and ever more shall be so, the Christian ones were usually Goanese. So Keith be sure to spell your name correct or you maybe next in line for the Serangs job. Cheers JS

[Michael Humby]

I started as a deck boy then SOS and resented that an EDH was paid more than me. Not sure of the difference between EDH and DHU

[Keith Tindell]

As i recall an EDH had in effect taken the AB shore examination, which was an examination by the Marine authority, the EDH had only then to complete 9 months seatime to be an AB. The SOS had only completed the seatime, kt

[Graham Shaw]

An old Thread here worth looking at !
Cheers

D.h.u. (merchant-navy.net)

Oh Vernon-you and your old threads! Come to think of it I've got quite a few old threads hanging in my closet,but nowt worth looking at,but then again haven't we all ? ! " Out ,out damned old threads ! Out I say!" - to paraphrase old Bill Shakespeare in his Macbeth.headbonk.gif

[j.sabourn]

They weren’t nylon threads were they. Don’t know if anyone can remember but there was a photograph going the rounds years ago considered very risqué. It was of two couples one couple was Peron and a partner Gina Lollogobrigida ( spelt wrong I know) the other couple forget who they were but the 4 of them were walking down Corrientes in BA all arms linked. The kinky part was they were all in the nude or as near as damn it. The story was they were all wearing nylon apparel and this special camera lens could see through it. Believe it or not I did at the time , the doubts set in later. Pleased I didn’t buy it. JS

[J Gowers]

JS
If I remember right you could see through nylon shirts if there was a UV light, I remember this from being a kid and going around the reptile enclosure in a zoo somewhere and there was UV light for the reptiles and you could see through the nylon shirts some of the guys were wearing but I was more interested in the girls nylon blouses. It was very exciting for a 12 year old!!!

[happy daze john in oz]

For years I wore nylon shirts, never knew that bit.
Might explain why I got some odd looks from some of the ladies.

[Colin Wood]

About 1946/7 one of our neighbours who had become a door to door salesman had a line of ladies bathing costumes which were selling well until a lady went inot the water when they became see through. He nearly got killed.