Different Characters

[j.sabourn]

#9... Can be a lousy thing to witness someone with the DT"s. Especially if you are stuck with them at sea for weeks. Found the best way to get them off was to sit them down ( if ship not moving around too much) and talk to and give a thimbleful of spirits at regular intervals every couple of hours. No doubt a doctor would be aghast, but when there is no medical advise present one uses what one can, and it worked with me. If in port would just phone for an ambulance. JS

[John Gill]

Guess my luck held out Stan, left the sea with a clean bill of health which I carried throughout my career, and savoured a few spices along the way and could have opened a fruit stall with the amount of cherries I lost

Hmm; seems that some 'members' believe their sexual reproductive abilities are infinite. A cherry spent is a bit like recapturing a lost youth- when it's gone it's gone. Life can never be 'a bowl of cherries'.

[happy daze john in oz]

Speaking of crew who liked a drink brings to mind a first class head waiter by the name of Miller. as is usual with such a name he was known as dusty. No one ever remembers seing him sober, he drank gin like it was water. But for all of this he was first class at his job and ran the saloon out of his pocket never missing a beat.

[Ivan Cloherty]

A cherry spent is a bit like recapturing a lost youth- when it's gone it's gone. Life can never be 'a bowl of cherries'.

Oh yes it can John! the girls didn't know the cherry had gone! maybe we didn't get paid much (£6 per month, less money to mum, NHI and believe it or not Tax!) and looking about 12 when 16 and 16 when 19 helped to keep the fruitbowl full and don't forget the bar of 'Yardleys' which in religous South America was not so much 'Fill her soul with hope' but 'Fill her hole with soap'

Life can be a 'bowl of cherish'

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Hi All.
Met a few characters at sea. One Polish AB I sailed with we had to tie to the hand rails and hose down he never had a shower and stank the accommodation out, he learnt. Another was a bloke from Middlesbrough on the NZ coast, alcoholic but a good bloke with it, never missed a watch, going across the Tasman he would have a couple of crates of beer under his bunk all with the tops off the bottles as he like his beer flat. If he ran out of money in Auckland he would go up to the Farmers { big store] and buy a mower on time, he would then sell the mower cheap and get his drink, he always paid the mower off, I guess he always had a good credit rating.
We also had an old bosun on the NZ coast old Wally who had sailed on the windjammers, great old character who me and my mate always tried to get him to take his fair sized yacht of the slips in Auckland, [ he used it as his home] and sail to the islands but we couldn't get him to do it. When we met at the corner when there to pick up a ship he would say "I know you pair of bastards you want to take my boat to the islands."
Cheers Des

[E.Martin]

We had relief mate cant really say how old he was we were on one of the paper boats doing short trips,he had patches on his uniform and he was as deaf as a post,going alongside or going to anchor any orders from the bridge he would ask one of the deck crew what was said.