How many had these

[Doc Vernon]

Yes Ivan, reading was another very good past time, and like you i read a lot too.My like then was Micky Spillane, Sir Ryder Haggard, and the Saint Books.
Westerns too i had a passion for
Cheers

[Bill Morrison]

I think most ships carried a library of sorts. I was inclined to westerns and science fiction and occasional "engine room manuals." As for music I had a Sony TC- 230 bought in Rotterdam, it was to heavy to lug about so left it at home. I still have it but never been played for years.
Bill.

[James Curry]

Yes read a lot , and when the seafarers education service put the new library onboard one had to be quick to get into it before all the decent books disappeared. Another past time was Cribbage usually played before and after dinner a 4 hander, the number of times one would hear and one for his nob. Darts was another but no fun unless there was beer involved, Doms another.
Social life died when companies introduced D&A regs and ships went dry. Meal times it was a case of bolt your food and bugger off. No more sitting around in the salon having a coffee and a chat. Last few years it would be the old man maybe the C/eng and myself would hang back for a coffee and a natter. No need for the steward to hang around as we would clear away our own coffee cups.
One old man was famous for producing a bottle of Drambuie and cigars for those that smoked.
Young guns did not know what they were missing.
Happy days

[Des Taff Jenkins]

In my first five years at sea I think I read everything on the ships that was printed, thanks to the various seamen Missions we where never short of reading material. But I think they sorted out the dirty books from Port Said/.
BTC had a big radio in their recreation rooms, helped to keep the standby man awake at knight.
Des

[happy daze john in oz]

Very popular book on the Windsor, think just about every winger read it.

'Confessions of a Misspent Youth'

Many of the pages wee stuck together.

[Gareth Hannam]

I had just my Record Player at Sea, was not too large and only the Records all 45,s wee the biggest worry to carry around .
Was similar to this .
Cheers

while in japan 1972 port of Nagoya, I quite liked a Sony stereo system it was equivalent to £40 could'nth afford at the time ,paid off many months later in uk and bought same stereo unit which cost me £140 and it is still working

[j.sabourn]

Most things in Japan in 1953 were considered cheap and nasty , e.g. the clockwork toys were made with pieces of old tins of baked beans and any thrown out garbage , the same as is being done today to try and save the world? The cheapest and most genuine thing to buy then was eggshell tea and dinner sets , I bought one to take home for my mother and one in later years for the wife which we still have. Japan rose from shoddy goods to some of the best in the world and to my mind equaled Germany on their optical lenses for binoculars etc. they did very well in their manufacturing industries rising from the ashes after the war. Cheers JS.
Japan at one time was considered the greatest copier and imitator of others goods. Today their equipment is considered top notch by most. They even changed a cities name to USA so as to be able to stamp on goods JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi John.
I bought two of those thin tea sets, but in Singapore, many years later on a trip home my sister still had hers, with a few hanging on the wall.
Des

[j.sabourn]

Yes hold them up to the light and they had a geisha girl in the bottom , nearly as good as the Genii coming out of the magic lamp. ? JS

[happy daze john in oz]

Ship mate I knew, an Aussie guy, bought his mother a transistor radio not long after they came out.
He had bought it in Japan.
Took it home to mum and said i bought this for you in Japan.

No bloody good to me she said, I do not speak Japanese.

The innocence of some of the older generation back then.