Chris Gundry
I was on the Bradford city as Deck boy/J.O.S. from 28.2.61 to 12.03.62. which was her last voyage
as a Rearden Smith ship. We started out from Falmouth in ballast to Housten Texas where we loaded grain and on the way down the Houston/Galveston canal we had a collision with some barges and subsequently were docked for repair to the bow section in Galveston.
My seagoing career started when I was fifteen & a half I went to the Vindicatrix training ship at Sharpness for ten weeks and the my first ship was a Banana boat out of Avonmouth to Jamaica and back to Southampton. I remained at sea until 1964 making six voyages on five different ships. When I came ashore I went truck driving in the UK & Europe for some time then went into Transport Management for a number of years. Then in the late eighties, with my wife, we sailed our own Yacht (34ft) to the Caribbean and worked out there for a number of years on Charter Yachts. On return to the UK we went into the Pub trade for a while but that was much too much like slave labour. I then set up my own small haulage company and am still running it now although it is just a van, and me; but I have been all over UK & Europe in the last ten years or so. I am now winding down and thinking of retiring and taking our Caravan around Europe for a good tour. I think that once you have been travelling it gets in your blood and I know that I will always keep moving around.
December 2011.