Andrew Marsh
After that first trip on the Prince Rupert City, I followed it up with another on the Vancouver, which left me wanting, so with heavy heart I decided not to return to sea but to remain a home bird. Not for long, after a stint working in a foundry I returned to the dry docks and found myself volenteering to work on several ships whilst at sea (The SGM). This I thought was not really going to sea, but would satisfy my need to travel, how wrong I was. I eventually joined Wales Gas in 1973, expecting a home every night job. This turned out to be very much not the case. Since then i've seen just about every part of the UK that has gas and some which were about to get it. The company was quietly broken up and I moved further into the gas transmission side of the business. Travel for me extended as the company moved further afield to international gas markets. This caused many of my collegues to see the alure of jet set travel, but I having had the exposure to Um Quaser and Basra on that first PRC trip had a good idea what was in store. I undertook some engineering work for the company in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Egypt, and low and behold the Middle East had not changed a bit. The only real diffrence being that the guys with the guns now had bullets unlike the dockside guards in Basra who only scared you with a big bayonet.
Retired now following a heart attack in 2008 and loving every minute.
But I still find myself at times thinking of that first trip on the Prince Rupert City. August 2010.