Scran at sea

[James Curry]

The latter years at sea the standard of food started to drop, yes there was decent grub but when they did away with the chief stewards standards slipped. It became the domain of the oldman to order the stores. A lot of times the stores order was just a repeat order from the last one. A lot of oldmen just passed the buck onto the 3rd mate who often got a hard time from others onboard because there was only strawberry or vanillia ice cream. But for all that we never went hungary. On one ship we had a filipino cook, great on the gutair but crap in the galley. The last straw was when he was doing Oxtail (pan fried)bloody hell it was like eating golf balls. He was that bad not just at western food the filipino crew in mass told the captain he had to go or he might not make the next port. He went the next port.

[Captain Kong]

I think ESSO tankers were the best feeders.
we even got a bottle of wine on a table for four both in the Officers mess and in the Sailors mess every Wednesday and Sunday, never missed.

[James Curry]

I think Brian Esso were creme de la creme when it came to tanker companies. Never heard anyone saying a bad word about Esso. BP were not bad but I have heard Joe Shell left a lot to be desired.

[J Gowers]

I was with J&J Denholm from 1974 to 84 with British, Chinese, Fillapino and Indian crew from what I remember there were no problems with food on any Diamond D ships I was on, later I did the few trips with Stena and then BP no problems with food there either. For the next 30 years I was on rigs and the food was superb on every rig I was on working World Wide. I do remember being on a rig working off Mussel Bay South Africa and a guy from Aberdeen used to complain about the food all the time. I asked him what was the problem with the food and he said there was no Sunday soup, never hearing of this I asked him what it was he said the soup his mother made on a Sunday. Just goes to show you cannot please everyone. I told my wife this story when I got home and a standing joke in our house was, "Are we getting Sunday soup today".

[Bill Morrison]

Post#1 James. The standing joke. Slow Starvation & Agony. I never had any problems with meals in Shaw Savill. I have a menu for a dinner and the reason is the Chief Steward must have been into recycling ( ahead of his time ) on the reverse side is an account of mine.
Bill.

[James Curry]

I see on your bill you have postage charges. I assume that is for mail personal mail going home? I never paid that , refused to BP, that was a perk for the chief steward. Screw that and him I always put my personal mail in with the ships mail which was passed to the agent. Never heard my wife complain about not recieving mail.

[Captain Kong]

On the CORRALES, Skin boat

We had a six day run down to Las Palmas where we stopped to load bunkers, It was during the night, a lorry came alongside the gangway as we finished rigging it. Then we were told to carry the stores we loaded down the gangway and onto the lorry. And at the end the Chief Steward with the Mate and Captain pocketed a wad full of notes. We got nothing. We had 12 passengers on board so we thought there must be plenty of food left on board. There was for them. The feeding was bad after that, we went hungry. Every meal was made of bananas, fried bananas, grilled bananas, roasted bananas, stewed bananas, boiled bananas, sauted bananas, mushy bananas, frappe bananas, and we were going bananas.
We couldn`t sleep at night because of hunger pains.
The Captain, `Mighty Joe` Young was a huge man, and when I was on the wheel he would be on the wing of the bridge lifting a 400 pound barbell, `Can you do this ` he would say to me.
`If you gave us some food I could, I am weak with hunger.`
`Don`t be so soft ` he would say.
All we had for evening dinner one night was a thin soup with bananas instead of potatoes, called Irish stew.
I was voted in as the one to go and kick to the Captain, `Mighty` Joe Young.
I went up the boat deck with my plate of "Stew", I knocked on his door and he opened it, towering above me, `What do you want` he said, `The crowd want to complain about the food, it`s diabolical. This is supposed to be Irish stew`". `What`s wrong with that? he said. Me forgetting he was an Irishman said `It`s alright if you`re Irish, but`. ? .
and with that he smashed me in the face with a big iron fist and I did a somersault down the ladder to the boat deck and ended up under a life boat. My face covered in blood from my nose and lips. I crawled down aft and all hands laughed at the state of me. They had eaten theirs, mine disappeared somewhere over the boat deck. So I went hungry again.

[Rodney Mills]

I was a galley boy on Port Jackson and Port Townsville and La Cumbre, learnt to cook standard foods plus curries and such for deck and engine crew.* I then joined Union-Castle and signed an apprenticeship program, went to their training school then worked on all the kitchen stations on The Athlone Castle, Warwick Castle and Dunnottar*Castle in Union-Castle's passenger kitchens.

UCLA paid an extra pound*a month if you had a ship's cook's ticket.* I took the course and passed the Board of Trade*test for my ticket at age 19 and was*told I was the youngest to ever hold a ship's cook's certification.* I had no intention of being a ship's cook, I was happy in the passenger kitchen, French style food in the first class and regular*Brit food for the tourist bloods.
* *
Then the poop hit the proverbial fan on a trip on the Athlone Castle. The ship's cook had the audacity*to die*between Las Palmas and Cape town. Now I had to earn my extra pound a month.

I was scared to death. There were big hairy assed Deckies wearing knives on their hips and dangerous looking Greasers and me, 19 years old and didn't know where the bloody refers and dry goods crew's storeroom was and lunch in two hours.* Fortunately there was a kindly second cook and Baker and galleyboy that showed me the way.

I got through lunch and dinner, when a great big deckie came up to the galley half door and said, "Bloody good grub cookie, you taking over?" I think I said something like "No sir, just until Capetown, there flying out a new ship's cook."

Three days later I scurried back to the safety of the passenger kitchen.

Rodney Mills B.O.T certification No. 40151. 8th Aug. 1957 (Ship's cook ticket).

[Rob Cumbes]

My folks were never well off and with five kids it was a struggle for them. Mum always had something on the table for us. One Christmas she ordered faggots from the butcher for our Christmas lunch. Old style school dinners were a treat - meat & three veg followed by a pud.
Imagine my delight, joining a Shell H boat at the age of sixteen as a cadet and seeing my first lunch menu and being served by a white coated steward. There seemed to be a lot of unnecessary cutlery too. I hadn't a clue so, keeping shtumm, I followed the lead of the senior apprentice: Soup?- yes please, entre? - yes please, main course? - yes please, sweet? (plum duff) - yes please. Twice round the buoy? What the f**k, another pudding! The senior apprentice must have had hollow legs. I could hardly walk. Only later did I find out going through the menu was optional. However, the Mate ran us ragged the whole trip, so my waist measured the same on pay off but I had gained a few muscles!

[happy daze john in oz]

There were three types of cook s at sea, cooks, cuckoos and willful bloody murderers.

On liners we never went hungry in catering crew and for most the crew mess for deck and engine was good.

On the 'Paprao' the second cook and bricklayer did a moonlight just before sailing.
As I had experience in the Pantry on 'Pretoria ' I was put in the galley to work with the ships cook.
Not so bad as he was a Scouce and did a good job, except when it came to making bead.
Only time I ever saw a French stick that when cut looked more like a gigantic straw.


Then on the 'British Hawthorn' a cook who was an alki, wanted to sell all his knives to use the money for beer.
In port all steamed food, never saw tins of steaming sausages before or after.

Came down the coast on a small coaster from Sunderland to Gravesend, as a passenger, no food on board, just a couple of loaves and a dozen cases of Newcastle Brown.
But only two nights