Down to the Sea. a Cadet’s Tale

Brian George

Description

The tale of a British Merchant Navy cadet’s first trip to sea. From the leafy lanes of Surrey to the grim docklands of nineteen seventies London to the jungles of Panama, on to the Land of the Long White Cloud and back again. The sea. The work. The crew. The friends. The enemies and of course, the women. What it was really like for an eighteen year old first trip cadet.

Sujets

• Slice of life story
• Seaman
• Fiction
• Humour

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse UK
• Date de parution: 25 janvier 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781665590150
• Langue: English

Extrait

DOWN TO THE SEA. A CADET’S TALE
 
 
 
 
BRIAN GEORGE
 
 
 
 

 
AuthorHouse™ UK
1663 Liberty Drive
Bloomington, IN 47403 USA
www.authorhouse.co.uk v
Phone: UK TFN: 0800 0148641 (Toll Free inside the UK)
UK Local: (02) 0369 56322 ([phone] from outside the UK)
 
 
 
 
© 2023 Brian George. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
 
 
Published by AuthorHouse 01/25/2023
 
ISBN: 978-1-6655-9014-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-9013-6 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-6655-9015-0 (e)
 
 
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Fo r us.
 
From a Presentation by E. J. Smith in 1907.
“When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience of forty years at sea, I merely say…. Uneven tful.
Of course, there have been winter gales, storms, and fog and the like, but in all my experience, I have never been in an accident of any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea …… ...
I never saw a wreck and have never been wrecked, nor was I in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort.”
On April 14 th , 1912, the RMS Titanic sank with the loss 1500 lives…. One of which was its Master, Captain E.J. S mith.
EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
THE NEW ZEALAND STAR

AUTHORS NOTE
H aving been asked on many an occasion by Uncle Ged, Aunt Michelle and the rest of these gentlemen, all coastguard officers of note, to record my nautical adventures, I have decided that now is the time to give in to such demands and make use of my retirement and set pen to paper… or finger to keyboard, as some literary folk would have it.
However, I must first thank Ged, Mike, and many others in Her Majesty’s Coastguard for setting me on this path. Their support and guidance has been invaluable, not only in my literary endeavours, but also in my work as a Watch Officer at Liverpool Marine Rescue Co-ordination Centre.
This tome is based on the experiences of a first trip cadet at sea, in the British Merchant Navy during the early nineteen seventies. That cadet is, of course, me.
I say based on, because although all the incidents described did actually happen, I have used some, shall we say, poetic licence and storified it to make the narrative flow a little easier. You can, however, be assured that the voyage described is a typical voyage on a typical ship of that time and I was a typical cadet. Well, no, that is not true. I was a little thicker between the ears and made a tad more mistakes than most. But then, that’s all to the good, just gives me more to write about! The characters herein are loosely based on people I worked with and met over several years, their descriptions and names being entirely fictitious and any likeness to anyone on the planet is entirely coincidental. Those descriptions belong to other people entirely.
I was lucky really to have worked for Blue Star Line. It was a well-known shipping company with a proud history, sleek vessels, and professional, competent people to run them. But the thing that stood out most of all was “The Way”. This was not unique to Blue Star Line. It was evident throughout the British Merchant Navy and incorporated a professionalism, a sense of humour, a toughness, an acceptance of hardship and an expectation of adventure. That is the only way I can describe it. To understand it, you had to be part of it, and I thank all the people I sailed with for showing me “The Way.”
I can say, with hand on heart, that I never sailed with anybody I disliked or had any issue with. I can’t, of course, say that I never sailed with anybody who didn’t like me , but that comes under the heading of T. P. (Their Problem)!
Brian George
CONTENTS
Foreword
Prologue
Chapter 1:On My Way
Chapter 2:Arrival
Chapter 3:Cathy
Chapter 4:Steven
Chapter 5:Captain Jonathan McHale
Chapter 6:The Film
Chapter 7:An Invitation
Chapter 8:Norwegian Barry
Chapter 9:A Bloody Nose
Chapter 10:An Assignation
Chapter 11:Promotion to Barman!
Chapter 12:Sailing…Maybe?
Chapter 13:Last night
Chapter 14:Sailing
Chapter 15:A Bit Rough
Chapter 16:A New Ambition
Chapter 17:Seeing To
Chapter 18:Caribbean
Chapter 19:Crocs…
Chapter 20:The New York Bar
Chapter 21:Homeward Bound
Chapter 22:Crocodile
Chapter 23:Over Easy
Chapter 24:Into the Big Ditch
Chapter 25:Pacific
Chapter 26:Paint
Chapter 27:Land of the Long White Cloud
Chapter 28:Party
Chapter 29:Scousula
Chapter 30:Kiwi Star Cavalry
Chapter 31:The Letter
Chapter 32:Gisborne
Chapter 33:Another Party
Chapter 34:Driving Lesson
Chapter 35:A Normal Night of Passion
Chapter 36:Briefly Bluff
Chapter 37:Oops!
Chapter 38:Ropes
Chapter 39:Last leg
Chapter 40:Channels
Chapter 41:So… Home again
Chapter 42:My Cathy?
Acknowledgements

FOREWORD
P hilosophers! They think deeply and seriously about what they observe in life and nature. They ask questions and draw attention to the human condition in its environment. They tantalise our curiosity and cause that spark that initiates a collective appraisal of their musings. Of necessity, they are master raconteurs.
Brian George is a master raconteur. He is an observer of life and has that rare ability to articulate what he sees in ways that has his audience spellbound and roaring with laughter. Regrettably however, because of his uncanny ability to put one and one together and come up with any answer but two, I have to say that he’s not quite up there with Plato and his mates - yet!
This book gives an insight into life in the British merchant navy during a unique period of time. It was a period of time that many-a-seafarer has sentimentally acknowledged as being the best time ever to have been at sea. It is the period of time that existed during the transition from the traditional merchant navy to the modern merchant navy. It lasted for roughly two decades - the 1960’s and the 1970’s – and coincided with the youth revolutions and pop cultures that emerged during that time. It was the time of The Beatles and Dylan, mini-skirts and the pill, a sexual revolution built on the “make love not war” credo, hippies and drugs, demonstrations and anti-establishment. War was over, the future looked bright and optimism ruled the day.
How this coalesced on British merchant ships where the older seafarers had been through the ravages of World War and the younger ones - inherently rebellious - saw life through a lens of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, was strange – to say the least. But strange in a way that reflected the characters that manned these ships. Irrespective of age, they were, in the main, adventure seekers. They were care-free, affable, happy-go-lucky and fiercely individual. They were non-judgemental, tolerant and extremely loyal to each other. Their guiding principle in life was “have fun” - and “fun” they had!
There is a view among younger people that the more rules there are, the more rules there are to break, and the more rules you break, the greater the fun. During that time to which this book relates, British ships were regulated by the British Merchant Shipping Acts and, it was generally the case that the older, hardened seafarers, abided by the rules and the younger ones gave scant regard to their disciplinary constraints.
Officers wore uniform and called those senior to them “Sir”. Crew wore flared jeans, floral shirts, had shoulder length hair and invariably puffed on a joint. Cadets and junior officers yearned for what appeared to be the non-conforming freedom of the crew but this, of course, would be harmful to one’s career. As the years passed and the older ones retired to be replaced by those once-junior officers, the merchant navy had transformed.
Brian George captures this time perfectly with his inimitable style of storytelling. It is a style intrinsic to his personality. I clearly recall being in pubs with him during our youth when he would hold court and regale us with stories of his adventures and misadventures and have us rolling around the floor laughing. Fifty years later at a class reunion he was still doing the same.
Warsash is a village that lies on the confluence of Southampton Water and the Hamble River. It is nine miles outside Southampton and home to the Southampton School of Navigation. Better known to seafarers all over the world, simply as, “Warsash”. It is a quasi-military establishment that takes boys and turns them into men, ready to undertake the rigours of life at sea. It was here I first met Brian. We were employed by the same shipping company and that made us kind-of brothers. We were family. We used to boast to other families of cadets – P&O, Clan Line, Cunard etc – that our company was not choosy when it came to picking cadets. No need for any lengthy select