Dai Mathews
Hi all,
Johns son here. Have enjoyed reading some of the tales and memories from posters on here. John passed away a couple of years ago now. He regaled me many (many) times about his times with Reardon Smiths, and its been a pleasure to see a lot of the names mentioned in his yarns on this forum. Whilst the old man was never one for letting the truth get in the way of a good story, I was somewhat pleased to discover that one of his yarns about falling into the Hoogli river was in fact true !!
Best wishes to all, Dai. Posted on forum 23 August 2013.
I was sad to learn that John had passed away as we were good friends but lost touch but I can
assure you he did fall into the Hoogli dark highly pollted river as I was the person who pulled
him out and he used to refer to me as the person who saved his life. When he slipped into the
muddy water we expected him to return to the surface but he never did and it dawned on us that
he was not going to surface and by luck because we could not see anything I felt his hair and pulled
him to the surface. He had swallowed some of the polluted water so in typical seamans logic
after making him vomit we poured rum inside him and he lived to tell the tale.
All his tales were based on a grain of truth and he and Robbie Bell would swop tales for hours,
Griff Jones. Posted on forum 24 August 2013.
Just seen this posting and I am so sorry to hear about John's passing. He was a good shipmate. My condolences to his family. Graham Mapplebeck. Posted on forum 25 August 2013.
I am very sorry to read that John passed away some time ago. We sailed together many times on Smith ships from when I was Third Mate up to when I was Master of the car carriers "Lerma" and "Guanajuato". The last time we sailed together unfortunately, we had to evacuate John because he had suffered a heart attack. We arranged to meet with the RNLI Newlyn lifeboat in Mounts Bay, off Penzance. I was Master and Cardiff radioed us that John had made a good recovery but I guess that was the end of his seagoing.
John was a great yarn spinner but I can swear that his two and half reverse somersaults with pike into the muddy waters of the Kiddepur Dock, Calcutta was absolutely true. I was on the same sampan going ashore. John was a great shipmate and a jolly good 'Sparks'
RIP old mate. Charlie Boyer. Posted on forum 9 September 2013.