Bob Fraser
Thinking back to joining the Atlantic City in Murmagoa was a bit of history. We flew to Bombay then changed planes to fly on to Murmagoa. Standing on the tarmac was an old Dakota, which I think most of us approched with a bit of trepidation. During the flight we had something to eat on board. One of our party asked if he could have a second heping. I asked John if he knew who he was.
“Yeah, that’s Colin Harrhy, the Chief Steward, God save us all .” But as it turned out we were okay with Colin – he must have just been hungry.
This might be a subject a few of you might like to explore as I remember John Howell telling me of the experience of flying back from Japan on the plane which took the horses out for the Japanese Olympics - I won’t go into detail. Suffice to say it was an experience, few would ever forget. Robbie Bell was also there, and Robbie hated flying. They didn’t fly over the Alps rather than through the Alps. John can perhaps carry on the story.
Reading about some of your members meeting nice guys was basically what I found. I never really came across anything other than nice guys, but maybe time has a factor in that, but I don’t think so.
The Merchant Navy then and probably still is the most tolerant group of people world-wide.
For your info I have some newsletters, belonging to Graham Thomas, who was a Sparkie with RLS for a number of years and attended your 2002 reunion. I think most people will agree that the main inteest is with the crew lists. So whilst I still have them in my possession I’d be happy to copy some of them for anyone who may be interested.
Atlantic City: 13/4/70 – 1/7/70 Murmagoa - Mizushima
Welsh City: 4/12/70 – 14/5/71 L’pool – Clyde Ports
Victoria City: 12/7/71 - 23/11/71 L’pool – Los Angeles
Victoria City: 24/11/71 – 11/2/72 Long Beach – Antwerp
P. Rupert City: 8/5/72 – 16/5/72 Lorient – Middlesborough
P. Rupert City: 16/5/72 – 17/7/72 Middlesborough – P. Rupert Broken Leg
Cornish City: 16/1/73 – 3/5/73 Miami – Yokohama
Indian City: 19/6/73 – 25/11/73 orfolk – Jacksonville
P. Alberni City:4/2/74 – 21/5/74 ardiff – Tilbury
P. Alberni City:21/5/74 – 14/6/74 Tilbury – Corpus Christi
I then had an offer of a Supers job within the Denholm Shipmanagement group which I took up on the 29/8/74.. I stayed with them until about ‘93. Then I went with Allan Stewart who split off from Denholms to form his own company. I stayed with him until 2004 when I was 70. I would have stayed longer but carrying the beef up and down hold and ER ladders was getting too much for me and the travel insurance was beginning to kick in a bit. Sometimes wondered about the decision to leave but I felt that a C/E’s job was a bit limited although I liked the fact that at that time Reardons didn’t send off a Super at the drop of a hat. It may have changed later as plane travel became relatively cheaper.
June 2017.