BBC 4 2100 hrs tonight

[John Arton]

Slightly off thread but last night's "Who do you think you are", featured footballer Alex Scott, an England female international of mixed heritage , Irish and Jamaican. On researching her Jamaican heritage she discovered that her 4th time great,great grandfather, a person described as a "sambo" on his birth certificate, was a free man of colour who actually owned 16 slaves and upon the abolition of slavery had claimed compensation from the British government.
Rgds
J.A.

[thomas michael]

hi ivan cloherty #10
good morning, your thirst for information of any of those inventions found to have its roots on the african continent will im afraid be unanswered, for every invention you list above came from us the europeans, and any advancement to that country and many others was only brought about by the intervention of once again the european, as a matter of fact whilst in freetown over sixty years ago,and myself walking from the ship to a village a couple of miles away and on entering that village that had a leper colony on one side with a wire fence around it, and the village mud huts and habitants only yards away i could easily testify that what i saw with my own eyes was something i had only seen in photographs at school, so it hadnt changed much by then.
tom

[John Pruden]

ivan one of my brothers were telling me about freetown there was a riot and all the cargo at the pier burned looted just stumps left smoldering back in early 60s can anyone tell me more please? jp

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Did it mention that the African and Arabs were the first slave traders or was it a British and American invention, just curious

was there not a Cornish village raided by Arabs looking for slaves and taking lots from there?jp

[Ivan Cloherty]

#15 Lewis you're always so self righteous in your posts like a modern Jekyll and Hyde, preaching christianity in some posts and then wanting to take someone on deck or round the back to sort them out, but we've got used to you and your posts designed to cause disruption. I don't think the young girl in your picture was responsible for the slaughter of hundreds/thousands of elephants and rhinos for their tusks to satisfy an insatiable Asian market, which believes by ingesting powders made from the aforsaid will endow them with sexual powers of said powerful animals. Having worked many years on AID programs in many African (and other) countries, it is always internal conflicts between indigenous tribes that causes the misfortune in these countries, not god, europeans or mother nature, but their own inability to make use of the bounty that mother nature gave them. Europe (includes UK) and USA give food and agricultural AID, the Soviets and Chinese give them Arms and military vehicles/equipment, the Chinese also build silk roads and railways, these are not for the benefit of the countries in which they are built but to facilitate rapid movements of the bounty back to Asia and for troop movements when the occasion arrives, and it surely will. When I worked in Ethiopia and Sudan it was always the vessels which carried Arms/Ordnance that got priority berthing, those carrying food/fertilisers went to the back of the queue. Don't think there's much that you can teach me about Africa, naturally I stand to be corrected by your personal experiences.

#16, Yes the Arabs and Barbarry pirates raided, Brittany, Devon, Cornwall and Southern Ireland for white slaves and had a liking of red heads from the Emerald Isle, I understand from previous posts that Lewis was a red head, luckily for him, he lived too far north, also lucky for us as would have missed all his enlightening posts

[j.sabourn]

Ivan the word Lewis means different things to different people , and is revered in certain parts of society going back hundreds of years there are others on site who know what I mean.
However that is a new one on me where Red Heads comes into it. If have missed something in the meaning of the word would be appreciative of any knowledge relating to such. I was on a ship called the Exmoor loaded with free gratis succour for the Sudan in the 1970s and although not carrying tanks , we did have two holds full of alcohol of every variety for so called teetotal countries we were pretty well up on the order of discharge . If Graham looks it up in his fabulous records of ships , beware there were two Exmoors in my life , the first one was the ship I was on in collision in the River Plate with the Dutch passenger ship the Ruys . This ship after repairs in North Shield Smiths yard was sold in 1963 or thereabouts. The second Exmoor was owned by Runciman shipping a subsidiary of Anchor Line of Glasgow. And my time there was 1975 or thereabouts, among all that booze in the Sudan. The final port of discharge was Mogadishu where I got caught up in the riots whist ashore , where I finished up spending the night in the garrison of the French Foreign Legion , who at that time were busy pulling out . They had quiet a good selection of drinks as well. Cheers JS....

[Des Taff Jenkins]

In 52 I was on the Harperly we went to Conakry and we tied up to trees, with a big cantilever looming over the ship where we loaded iron ore, the shore supervisor took us up the wharf to a building where there were iron rings attached to the walls and floor, he said that was where the slaves were kept waiting or shipping to the States or the islands, they had kept it to remind them of the good old days.
I believe now Conakry is one of the biggest and most modern iron ore port around. Times change.
Des

[j.sabourn]

#10. 0ne can ask the same question of the continent of Australia . What did the original inhabitants invent ?
To my knowledge the wheel itself was an imported article even in a so called civilised world. The boomerang advertised by would be generations of the goodies Australia was responsible for , started its career as a simple throwing stick. And the old song by boomerang won’t come back , is really the truth. There are certain parts of the world which seem to have been in a time lock , and a lot still are . Civilisation as we know it seems to have originated in the middle and Far East , that’s where the most philosophers mentors and brains seem to have evolved from . Myself as recently mentioned I admire the author of the Kama Sutra . JS

[Des Taff Jenkins]

And England had Shakespeare John, like you and the Karma Sutra, "Perchance to dream"
Des

[Keith Adams]

#20 JS. Your last line made me chuckle so i give you a”LIKE” ! Sadly, i missed out on West and South Africa, can add Australasia to that too, so i am most interested in the variety of posts from the membership about your experiences in those countries/continents. Thank you all. Cheers, Keith A.

[Ivan Cloherty]

However that is a new one on me where Red Heads comes into it. Cheers JS....

Those with an abundance of ginger like folecules John, not the ship repairers known to many of us.

As far as booze was concerned, nothing changes those ships with whiskey on board as cargo also got priority berthing in Ethiopia and Sudan, these were Chinese and Russian ships with Irish/Scottish whiskies on board. How do I know, because whilst my ships were waiting to berth the ship's agent ask me to do an independent cargo bad weather damage survey on Russian vessels in Assab, the Masters of which were very friendly and free with their information and would not allow the 'Official Politburo Officer' into their cabin whilst I was in there having seaman to seaman talk. I gave a fuller post some years ago, but Glenn Miller and Black Label seemed to be their choice of music and liquid refreshment.