Tell her to employ **** so you can get some serious stuff done like writing!Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Kong
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Tell her to employ **** so you can get some serious stuff done like writing!Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Kong
Hi John
**** is on more money than us, he is on benefits. he could employ me to do his jobs.
Cheers
Brian.
With Richard mentioning the Police. Id like add that after finishing being at sea aged 23 I joined the Police Force and in many ways if was like when you went away as a boy rating for the first time, everything is new and you have to learn from the bottom. It's a new way of living, a new language and new unheard of responsibilities that are thrust on you from day one. I cannot remember how many dead bodies I've dealt with except for the first one. Four weeks into the job and I was instructed to attend a post mortem on a six weeks old baby, i had never seen a PM before and believe me its not pretty. I still remember the name of that baby now and that was almost 50 years ago. You cannot get upset as you had to do the job ,however unpleasent. With regards to HIndley and Brady I had to be goaler for them together with a Police Woman for one full shift. Her for Hindley and myself for Brady. We had instructions that under no circumstances were we to talk to them. I never really fully understood the reason for that until many years later when I was invloved in actually dealing with muderers. During my service i arrested nine people both men and women for various murders. I was on duty at Chester Crown Court as usher (Police did that job in those days) for the duration of the trial. I saw all the photographs and heard the tapes fully, not nice.It was not all doom and gloom though I had some very good times as well. On my first day of duty I was in digs and when I left to go to work i realized i didn't know where the Police Station was and when i went onto the street for the first time in full uniform I had to ask someone where it was.:D
John Albert Evans.
Very good John Albert, you and all the people in the Service deserve all our respect for what at times is a harrowing job.
Cheers
Brian.
I only managed three and a half years before leaving at 21 but will never forget to appreciate how lucky I was and what a fantastic time I had. Will have to sit down and think about all the weird and wonderful things that I've seen (does the dance of the flamin' arseholes count as weird and wonderful??) and make a list. A lot of them unfortunately are "slightly blurred" but the one thing that will always stick in my mind is the train journey from Liverpool to Middlesboro to go and join my first ship, sitting amongst the biggest bunch of arl arses I've ever come across who did nothing but wind me up about how Eddie Sherlock, 2nd Steward, liked young boys. Oh what happy times, scared shitless but loving every minute of it!!! As it turned out Eddie was one of the nicest guys I've ever met and was just like a mother to me on that first trip.
Not only the police have unpleasant tasks at time, think of the nursing staff, the paramedics called to a road trauma. Images in their minds maybe for years to come, but sadly many of them do not get the recognition or support they deserve.
I guess even as Seafarers we had our unpleasent tasks,
There are no Undertakers on ships and it was a job that always fell to the Deck Department.
Sometimes a passenger snuffed it or it was a close mate killed on deck or in his bunk. Then we had to sew them up in canvas and slide them over the wall, an empty chair in the mess room, an empty bunk in the cabin.always a reminder, Mail arriving for him after he was dead for a couple of weeks or so. Sad.
Here is an account of one on the old Franconia in 1956 in the Seafaring Stories thread..............................
.
I remember when a first class waiter dropped dead whilst serving passengers, Our watch on deck had to go into the saloon and carry him out, the first class passengers rather disturbed at having their evening dinner disrupted.
We took him to the Medical Centre and the Doctor certified him dead then told us to take him to the cool room down below. We took the lift to the working alleyway then we had to use the stores lift which was four feet high and about four feet wide, so we folded him up in it and sent it down. There were no fridges on the Franconia, the Chill room was full of blocks of ice and the meat was stowed on top of this also the veg. . He was naked and we laid him on top of the ice blocks alongside the Veg..
The following day the Doctor wanted him up in the Medical Centre to do a post mortem, so we had to go down to get him. He was stiff frozen solid when we got there. We didnt like to touch him, he was icy cold like a marble statue. The Bosuns Mate said dont be so soft and then slid him off the ice and stood him up. So we had to get a hold of him, a bit gruesome. we got him to the stores lift and he was stiff so we had to struggle to get him in, he was put diagonaly from the bottom corner to the opposite top corner we had to get Tommy Miller to get inside with him to get him positioned. Then the Bosuns Mate slammed the lift door on Tommy, and pressed the button for it to go up, then he pressed it again when it was between decks and stopped it. Tommy was screaming , he couldnt get out. The Bosuns Mate shouted Smoko and so we all went forard for a ciggy and a brew. Meanwhile in the lift which was against the engine room bulkhead was getting warm, it was dark in there and then the stiff started to move as it melted, Tommy was screaming in fear as this corpse started to move against him in the dark, he was demented.
When we returned the screams were terrible, The button was pressed and the lift arrived in the working alleyway and Tommy was there with the corpse lying on top of him. I have never seen so much fear in a mans eyes as then. we lifted the corpse off him and put him on a trolley and Tommy was told to go and have a smoko. Tommy went straight into the Pig and got himself drunk and 57 years later Tommy is still drunk. I still see him and we keep in touch.
The dead Steward was carried ashore at the Landing Stage in Liverpool and into an Undertakers van.
On the next trip homeward bound again a very large American female passenger died, she must have weighed about twenty stones. The night before we arrived in Liverpool, Paddy Dirkin and I had to take the coffin forard to the crew gangway shell doors ready for taking ashore when we docked. Paddy and I had had a few drinks before we did this and she was so heavy we couldnt carry her so we were dragging the coffin, which was only a rough box lined with cotton wool, with a rope. we stopped half way along the working allyway and sat down on the coffin for a ciggy. Paddy told me that I had fallen asleep on top of the coffin. he had to wake me so we could carry on forard. Next day alongside the Landing Stage, Paddy, Johnny Golbourne and I dragged the heavy coffin down the crew gangway and with the Undertaker lifted it into his van.
Cheers
Brian.
I 'liked' that Brian the way you told us, not for what happened to Tommy was a life's sentence. That cretin might have been a Bosuns Mate but but not anybody else's.
Richard
I saw a few deaths at sea but the worst was an AB who whilst drunk fell asleep in his bunk & set the mattress on fire with his cigarette. He died I believe from smoke inhalation? Anyway three of us after the cabin was put out had to get him out, I can still smell that appalling smell now. It was the first time the mess was silent. The smell permeated the accommodation for quite a few days, his cabin was locked up as I recall? I do not know where he was stored but he was buried at sea 24 hours later we stopped the ship a small service was held maybe ten crew present, all quite touching if lonely if one can say that? The Lampy told me he put the last stitch through his nose, I never knew if that was truth or just to turn me off as i was pretty young as well as still a tad naive. Might sound weird but I can see that AB's face today as I write this he was a amusing Hebrides guy always kept to himself but would teach us younger crew anything we asked. The worst was an Ap who tied a heaving line around his neck & jumped from the boat deck have mentioned this before he was being hazed. He was not found for two days then was noticed being dragged along side, the guy who saw him though he was a dolphin not a pretty sight when brought on board! I wondered if his parents were ever told the truth as to his death, doubt it there were some deck officers who should have been reprimanded for this tragedy bet the were not though.
Landing in Suez 7th November 1956, visiting bombed El Gamil airfield, next to a cemetery, stumbling across a bombed communal grave, a smell that lives forever. Think I put a photo in the gallery, it's smell free!