Female radio officers at sea mid 70's on tankers before sex disc Act

Glasgow was a LOT different Brian , I did suggest in an earlier post though in the light of Lucy's treatment on board a CP ship at the sweaty hands of a fellow officer that all ladies despite their background and their profession were normally treated like ladies , but I had forgotten some here frequented some of the rougher establishments , the backwaters of Whitley Bay , Glasgow , and a few other ports that I care to forget .

I remember on one tanker in the 70s we were in a port in Thailand near a village. The ship had a couple of guards on board. Two women spent the entire afternoon climbing the ropes. When they nearly reached the top the guard shook the ropes and they fell in the river. Obviously this was good entertainment to a lot on board and having lusted after them all afternoon, when nightime came and they bribed the guards, half the ships crew and officers had made sort of 'Board of Trade friends'with these two. When we reached HongKong so many had gone up the road to see the quack that the ship had to get shore side in for tank cleaning. Well admittedly not a pleasant task but that excuse for evading it probably beats them all. One officer knew he was going home a week later and had his fiancee to meet!!!

Some of the venerial diseases picked in the Far East could take sometimes a year of treatment. One well known one was 'Vietnam Rose'. I understand a few years earlier Singapore used to line up the men and examine them when a ship docked, so i was told by one engineer. Lady Nancy Astor during was years was supposed to have suggested when when she was MP for Plymouth Sutton, that all merchant seamen wore an arm band when they were home to warn people because of the diseases they might be carrying.

Did any of those of the Personnel dept of CP Ships ever think what could happen to a woman who was raped or had a man forced upon them.l Admittedly i can say with hand of heart that they didn't care a toss about my welfare. I can say for absolute certainty there one woman who worked as an officer who was given a present by one of the men who had not respect for their body and just thought she was there for their instant gratification . Off course 'all woman want' , so some men convince themselves. It's just a game putting up a fight.

When I worked for Shell Tankers I like the rest of the men were sent of courses eg firefighting , Medical course. One Captain in CP i sailed with did a survey. He was ex tanker company and the only ones who had been on these courses worked previously for oil companies.

I took the few day medical course at St Georges Hotel Liverpool. I was the only woman on it and a large table with men on both sides. I teamed up with a very pleasant elderly R/O for the tasks eg taking each others blood pressure. It was run by a doctor and a passenger boat nurse. It started off with the male doctor and the nurse not present giving us a very graphic slide show of mens genitals affected by all these different venerial diseases I had never heard of a lot of them in this country or heard ofm them since. Not a pleasant sight. What they didn't show is woman affected by them. Maybe the men that went on these medical courses didn't think they could be given to woman since that aspect wasn't included!!!! It can leave woman infertile too. However if the survey that took place on one CP tanker by Capt was reflective of the whole fleet, probable not many of the men had been on them. Trust CP ships to be skin flints and save of important issues like that. The men really needed educating.

One man who worked for United Arab told me a few years ago that he married his best friend' s wife. Her first husband had contracted a very nasty form of V.D. which left him paralysed from waist downwards. It had afftected his muscles. His wife having been infected by him needed quite a bit removed from her abdomen, full hysterectormy etc. His best friend had subsequently married her, but eventually split up and blamed the marriage split on the problems caused by the operation and knock on effects.

Rape at sea isn't just about pregnancy. It can also have other complications and knock on effects.

When you mentioned Vietnam Rose , the first time I heard of it was as a first tripper , when we reached the beautiful islands of Mauritius , with the beautiful maidens , an American troopship was taking the long route home , and shipping troops on a courtesy tour instead of flying them , a large proportion were the 1% of STD infected people who had the "Black Pox " or " Vietnam Rose " variety of Syphilis . There was another Clan Boat in front of us in the anchorage , and no one was going ashore , they had been the for several weeks and were loading frozen prawns for the UK . This was an older ship having survived World War 2 , and full of quite a lot of Clan Line legends . We went aboard on our way ashore and some of the hardest drinkers in the fleet were drinking fizzy orange juice . They had a collection of STDs that was including just about everything . I went ashore spent a nice afternoon , but without a short relationship on a financial basis , Life is for living , and some of the things the Yanks were spreading were not friendly . We followed that ship all around Africa . They were homeward bound by sea , so they got back to New York disease free , after a three month boat ride home whilst the penicillin worked , to be disease free when reunited with their wives and sweethearts . So as much as the dusky maidens were beautiful and available , I passed on that one .

When I have been listening to the Radio Interviews from the Rochdale Victims , the Police response of you must have wanted it , you let them do it , despite the one I heard being a 13 year old child at the time , is representative of a sick society .

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Originally Posted by cappy

well brian treated like ladies ..who didnt get a present as a souvenir .....but some did ....

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Now Cappy, it was not just the ladies who fought over the men. I amde the mistake of going into the Horse and Groom in Southampton andwas spotted by two 'alter females' both crying out, I saw him first. Never knew I could do the 100 meters in such good time.

For those who did the Shipmaster Medical Course in Liverpool in the 70"s, the statistics for VD was that the average age of the carrier was 13. Kids as young as that were on the game. For drug deaths the average age was 22. When one gets down to statistics we are often surprised what our nice clean clinical world has to show once you get below the surface. These figures now I would not particularly like to see as will not have improved any and should imagine are very much worse part due to the massive influx of people and the big rise in population. JS

Contrary to would be popular believe and the reputation that seamen were supposedly blamed to have, they were probably a lot more better educated and medically fit than a lot of shore workers, who tried to hide any social disease. A seaman when he knew he had even ran a risk would seek medical clearance, that cant be said for a lot of shore workers. It is pure falacy that a seaman would knowingly spread such. A shore worker would not appear at a clinic unless he had to, whereas a seaman would go just to make sure he was clear. JS

Perhaps one of our navigators could answer this.Rob mentioned Mauritius I remember before we got there when I was on the King Henry the 2nd mate warned that it was in the Pilot book or whatever that Mauritius was listed as a very high risk place for VD.I wondered was he just scaring the crew or did such details appear in some book on the bridge.I know one lad touched out and he was treated in each port we called at on the way home and he still was'nt clear when we reached the UK maybe some 8 weeks later.
Regards.
Jim.B.

Re yr post about the average age having been 13 and your speculation that it might have got worse. This might not be so because to quote fm a paper on the internet.
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The sex life of older adults – long ignored and little researched – is getting new attention in the face of some staggering statistics.

Rates of sexually transmitted diseases such as chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis have doubled for people in their 50s, 60s and 70s in the past decade, but safe sex awareness among older adults and its promotion by doctors is still lagging, according to an article published today by researchers at Kings College and Saint Thomas’s Hospital in London.
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There has been quite a bit written about older people being a lot more sexually active recently and having affairs and involved in swingers groups and this resulting in them catching various STD's. I have heard this said about some of the Golf groups and only recently a younger male in his twenties was commenting re a Golf club he was a member of where there were quite a lot of older members that the woman were worse for having affairs there, than the husbands.

Jim B #47
Cannot recall if the Pilot Book covering Mauritius mentioned the high amounts of V.D. on that Island but it could well have done. There were many interesting comments in the Pilot Books, which none of todays mariner's bother to read or even know about the wealth of information contained in them. I know that in some of the West African pilot books the danger of fevers are mentioned, same for the Indonesian Islands re. malaria. Even up to around 10 years ago you could find entries regarding the availability of potable water on many of the small islands around the world.
My favourite was the comment regarding Socotra Island at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden which read "Landing is dangerous here due to the presence of cannibals".
Looking the place up on the internet nowadays reveals it as an almost must visit place. Inscriptions made by sailors in 1A.D. have been found in huge caves and the Island of Socotra is considered the jewel of biodiversity in the Arabian Sea, with its flora and Fauna.
Wonder if Costa Cruises would consider running there with their Italian Captains who are renowned for getting close to islands?
rgds
JA

a) could I have the name of the club please , the Golf club I am a member of is quite staid ,

It was in the Pilot book about Mauritius at the time I was there 1968 / 1969 , the book we had in the library in the Ships Bar was an old edition though , I think the big concern as it was a place rife with syphilis amongst the working girls . You could go to a beach in a local aged taxi for a few shillings and a fresh green coconut top sliced off and filled with ice and rum , was more expensive than the very pretty young girls working out of a straw hut on the beach . OK i'm a drinker and the rum was nice , and you did not need to be cured afterwards