2013

[Arthur John Harvey]

R235941 WISHING ALL WHO VISIT THIS SITE A HAPPY NEW YEAR, NOW 72 YEARS SINCE i JOINED MY FIRST SHIP.TIME DOES NOT STAND STILL.

[Doc Vernon]

As they say Arthur
Time waits for no Man! (or Woman for that matter haha!)
Good going mate keep it up! Only 55 Yers for me since first joining the Merc! Spring Chicken !! LOL
Cheers

[Lou Barron]

There is a lot of spring chickens on this site Vernon

[Richard Quartermaine]

In a couple of weeks it will be 66 years since I sailed off into the distance. Without sprightly spring chickens it would not be long before there was no hen house.
Cheers to 2013.
Richard Q

[Colin Pook]

Hi Arthur. Many thanks for your seasonal greetings. Tell us, what was the name of your first ship, where did you go to, and how much were you paid?
As another 'spring chicken', I'd be interested in your first trip.

Many regards mate, and I'll e.mail you soon.
Colin

[Neville Roberts]

OH my you dont have to remind us of how old we are . if I can remember it was 58 years for me washing dishes and scrubbing floors ,by hand . but I was going too east africa wow .I wonder if the youth of today would suffer that heat , and menial job . . for the free travel into the great unknown . aar lads I miss my youth , and inocence .

[Richard Quartermaine]

Crikey, Neville - The SS & A Moreton Bay, 1948, to the dizzy heights of Asst Stewards from Galley Boy on the SS&A SS Raranga with winging and kids' teas as the easy bit. Six O'clock every morning carrying cases of booze from somewhere down near the keel to the bar up near the funnel and just to make sure you were really knackered you then got a bucket, rag, a scrubbing brush and cabolocene - if that's how you spell the soapy disinfectant- and a designated large patch of the entrance to the saloon where on your knees you cleaned up after the previous days traffic before serving up breakfast. All that behind you and you got around to having your breakfast.

Eight to a cabin up in the sharp end with porthole scoops that brought in hot air from the Red Sea. Oh what fun!!! It made cargo boats seem like your daddy's yacht.

Funny, it seems like yesterday.

Richard Q

[Arthur John Harvey]

R235941 Hi Collin, my first ship was a small fleet tanker based in Portsmouth, we worked between Portsmouth and Portland re fuelling destroyers in the Channel, and I was the cabin boy, done four months and then joined my first deep sea ship being a troopship taking 3000 troops to Durban then across to B.A. to load 8000 tons of frozen meat; we could also carry 500 passengers, started as pantry boy, next trip deck boy, then JOS /sailor/EDH. My first pay was £3.10 shillings a month and half of that was war risk money, there was no such thing as a forty hour week. Those were happy days; took second’s mates in 1945

[Richard Quartermaine]

Arthur, I was 15 when I got a job on Port Line' MV Lowlander in Newcastle NSW in January 1947 to replace the saloon boy who had jumped ship. I have written about this trip and can put it on a PDF if it is OK to put it somewhere on this site (about 10 x A4 pages). But I really wanted to mention that my pay was 5 quid a month plus 5 quid War Bonus. My next ship was the SS Raranga, paid off London October 1947, as galley boy and I got the same. After that it was stopped and the total pay continued but not referred to as any part War Bonus.
Richard Q