How low can one go???

[Jim Brady]

The title is how low can one go. When you are completely skint how low will you stoop to get a few bob.We all have values and principles and will we ever let the situation that we are in cloud our vision and take away these values and principles and make us go against our beliefs.Obviously if you are starving maybe there could be an excuse for bending the rules.Here is a little situation that i once found myself in.We went around the land on a PSNC boat and ended up in London for the weekend, only been in the ship two days so no chance of a sub.Imagine that London for the weekend away from home dying for a bevy and its sorry boys,no bond no ciggies and no run ashore.Anyway PSNC used to run corporate lunches,so after we finished serving the officers and engineers in the saloon a contingent were sent over from Royal Mail to do the special.Their chefs,wine waiters and waiters,16 in all and every one of them gay (I prefer queer).The chief steward asked me if I fancied some overtime washing glasses in the bar,I was up for that.the waiters were bringing me scotch good style,I eventually had to get a whisky bottle to put it into to take my mates a drink.Anyway eventually this little Scot queer put £40 into my hand just to go ashore with him for a drink "no strings attached" just to show off as he put it.At that time I was on £36 per month so it was over a months wages.It was funny you know he went down the accommodation looking for me and told the boys of the offer.The word went around the ship there was old firemen and deckhands coming down the alleyway and posing wanting to take up his offer.ALAS he only had eyes for me.I would'nt take up his offer,my mates were going bananas,"Jimmy go ashore with him get the money go the Roundhouse and we'l all be in there you'l be safe enough and we will all have a good bevy".Sorry but I could just not take money off a queer so it was a night aboard for all hands who were not amused with me.More to this story which i may post but after having a good 8 pints i think its time for bed.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[leratty]

Jim that is hilarious, the Roundhouse ah some great memories! Oh I thought they were known as 'fruits' then? The one thing we used to do which looking back on it was quite dangerous as we could have been charged I reckon was nick paint along with other deck stores & sell it to the locals. Must say I can not recall how we got it all ashore as it was always big or heavy stuff but many a few days were financed that way on the Sth American coasts, as well as in the Caribbean . The shacks in B.A. were all pretty much BSL colours I think we often did the painting too, same in Monti & Santos (: Caribbean bars were generally T&L-PSNC-Shell etc colours. I am sure the bosun-lampy must have known we were up to this? Richard

[Ivan Cloherty]

What a thing to say Richard, where is your charity, they never knew a thing. All they did was say to the nightwatchman 'The paint locker keys are on the first hook inside my door, if you need them for emergencies' what constituted an emergency was of course open to conjecture, did beer money' fall into that category

[leratty]

Oh Ivan how naive I was then... would never have thought the bosun would be so inclined....I do recall 'borrowing' wire & rope, shackles et al then taking them ashore via a dinghy supplied with a rower. We would lower the goods over the side sh..ing ourselves in case we got caught. The bosun rarely drank with us ashore on the vessels I was on, he was to us so much older so really would not have understood our talk on Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, Yardbirds, etc & most had done it all anyway. I recall on one ship, a B.A. Flyer that was such a bad feeder we did a raid on one of the chiller holds en route back to Blighty with a torch & butchers book from the cook delineating the specific areas of a beef-lamb carcass for cutting huge slabs of meat off for him to cook. Ah so funny to recall these incidents, what a great life it was, what terrific people in the main we mixed with & some mates we have retained. Richard

[Captain Kong]

When I was on the SUEVIC in 1955, we went on strike over Shore Pay in Beauty Point , in Tassie. The Captain got the Police down to arrest us for mutiny. The Wharfies told us to go back to work and they went on strike. We were there for over six weeks, the ship was blacked by everyone and could not sail. The Captain stopped our subs.We had no money, Then the boss of the only pub there the Beauty Point Hotel said if we painted the Hotel inside and out we would be on free beer for the duration. All the paint went out of the paint locker and we made a lovely job of the Hotel in Shaw Saville colours. We painted the inside at night and the outside at the weekends, The Boss also had a beautiful daughter and we had a great time.
The Captain could not understand how all hands were getting bevied every day.
A few years later the Hotel burned down.
Cheers
Brian

[John Arton]

London, late 60's what a place. The Roundhouse etc. Carnaby Street, Rolling Stones Hyde Park...loved every minute ofit.
Lived with a young lady of irish decent just off Vick. Docks, drank every day in the "NEW GOG orthe Station". Staggering back early one morning for a 07:00 turn too noticed that the Station hotel had a very nice new paint job in a rather garish green.
Got on board to find the mate going ape as all the paint that had been delivered the night before for the shore gang to start painting her in the new company colours that morning, had mysteriously disappeared overnight. Could not bring myself to tell him where it had all gone but I do recall free drinkies in that pub with the boys that night.
rgds
JA

[leratty]

John, yes you are quite right living in London then, the 60's, was a wonderful period how lucky were we? Six of us had a house at Lancaster Gate after starting staying at Flying Angel-Stella Marris worked out it was less expensive for a house. There were always at least two away so no hot bedding (: Not only did I have the superb period at sea in those years if you will the dying days of cargo ships but also when back in London. Then to top it all off after leaving the sea & going to London Uni it was full on too & for extra cash I used to work, with this very funny cockney & his dad, do not laugh as Gerge Fornby cleaning windows what a hoot some of the things you saw were amusing. Bloody marvellous time the groups we saw in the clubs-pubs, The Kinks, Nashville Teens, Herman's Hermits, Gerry & Pacemakers so many. Actually spoke to Eric Burden from The Animals & saw Procol Harum, oh Whiter Shade of Pale what a song in the 'Captains Cabin' how many fell down those stupid steep stairs...let alone not broken your neck doing it? Richard