Scrapbook Memories (Part 1)

[chris_webb]

essexpete:

Chris Webb:

Spardo:

whisperingsmith:
Was that about the time we got flashing indicator lamps ■■

You could buy the kits and the ‘Trafficator’ switch from the local motor supplies shop.

Now selling for £75 on Ebay

1

I have a feeling they might have been even earlier as I remember, not being a driver by that time but nevertheless interested and at the same time a stick in the mud and saying ‘I don’t like them and they’ll never catch on’. So when I started driving, early 60s, I had a for a time a Leyland Octopus which had a giant plastic orange blob, as big as my hand, to the left of the dashboard. you turned it all the way round in the direction you wanted to turn and it was clockwork and slowly ticked loudly all the way back to the off position.

BTW, I have mentioned before being very passionate about mirrors and never had a broken one till I got here. I was parked on a bay near Nantes and the driver next to me pulled forward but a little too close and cracked my Zanetti. I was really upset because it was mine, an extra to the standard that belonged to the boss, and I demanded money from him. He merely said get out the form and I’ll sign it but on learning it was mine just said ask Gauthier for a new one, and drove away.

The AEC MK3s had that big self cancelling indicator knob as well David.A E Evans weren’t well known for fitting driver comforts but they did start fitting Zanetti mirrors as shown in the photo of one of our AEC MK5 3 axled conversions from Mammoth Major 8 leggers.A Pod Robinson photo.

Did the conversions get a new reg plate?

Yes they were newly registered when converted.The other one was BMX 746H. I can’t remember the reg numbers of the MK5 Mammoth Majors that were converted though.

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[grumpy_old_man]

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The photo of Nightingales Mk 3, now that picture to me gentleman sums up proper road haulage from 50 ish years ago. It’s a fabulous picture, an old, well worn workhorse going about it’s daily grind, most likely shunting what had come up from London (or down from Scotland )on a night trunk.
Nightingales were a Garforth, Leeds outfit so i’m guessing the photo was taken in the Leeds area.
…

[mushroomman]

Dennis Javelin:

Spardo:

ERF-NGC-European:

Spardo:
My main memory of the QE2 was from underneath. George Milner and I had a wander round when waiting to tip containers in Southampton. She was in dry dock and no-one seemed to notice as we both walked down the concrete steps and strolled around next to the keel.

Last time I saw QE2 was in Port Rashid in Dubai where she was retired to as a hotel ship I believe.

One of my old ships ended up like that, the Queen Mary, in San Diego I think. The outward bound trip to New York in her was the roughest I have ever experienced. Confined to the foc’sle head deep in the bowels in the old fashioned way (she was built mid '30s I think) it was akin to rising and falling in a tower block lift for several days and nights. Even some old Murmansk convoy hands were in the sick bay with ruptured stomachs. For me it was sufficient to spray little bits of carrot all over the walls that I was designated to wash, in between lying down for recovery in my bunk.

I visited her in San Diego when we docked there for a few weeks. Beautiful interior, like the film set off something like Downton Abbey. Surprised that she didn’t handle well in rough seas though given the size of her, must have been a helluva storm but I suppose that’s not unusual for the north Atlantic. You should have tried crossing it in a frigate

If I can skip back a couple of pages, The Queen Mary is now berthed in Long Beach not far from Los Angeles.

She is used as a hotel and a tourist attraction, or she was when we visited her in 2016.

While walking around the ship as tourists, my wife and I found ourselves downstairs in part of the hotel where we came across two rooms which were marked on the doors as, The Churchill Suite and The Windsor Suite. As the Churchill Suite door was propped open with the cleaner’s mop bucket and there were no cleaners around my wife decided to venture in. I thought that at any minute that the security men would jump out and ask what we were doing in there, but I eventually wondered in.
The thing that surprised me was that the double bed appeared to be about three feet off the ground for some reason.
I never took a photo of The Churchill Suite, but I did take some of the bridge and the engine room etc.

The Q.E.2 is still in Dubia and is used as a five-star hotel.

[spardo]

mushroomman:
While walking around the ship as tourists, my wife and I found ourselves downstairs in part of the hotel where we came across two rooms which were marked on the doors as, The Churchill Suite and The Windsor Suite. As the Churchill Suite door was propped open with the cleaner’s mop bucket and there were no cleaners around my wife decided to venture in. I thought that at any minute that the security men would jump out and ask what we were doing in there, but I eventually wondered in.
The thing that surprised me was that the double bed appeared to be about three feet off the ground for some reason.
I never took a photo of The Churchill Suite, but I did take some of the bridge and the engine room etc.

You mean you didn’t visit the Spardo Suite? It was somewhere far below your first picture of the bow. You wouldn’t miss it, peas and carrots all over the bulkhead, but not all mine.

[mushroomman]

The Spardo Suite seems to ring a bell.

Was that the little room which we had a sneak peak in which was completely empty, except for an old wooden barrel that was stood in the corner.

Seriously though, I have been thinking about Churchills bed and why it seemed to be so high off the floor. The base around the bed appeared to be varnished tongue and groove so I wonder if it was also a personal storage locker. The rest of the room looked like it would have been back in the 1940’s.

And the telephone box on the starboard bow, how did that work.

[spardo]

mushroomman:
And the telephone box on the starboard bow, how did that work.

5

I have no idea mate, I never got as far as the deck. But I must have done, I was part of the deck crew, for goodness’ sake. Isn’t it funny how, as you get old(er) there are some events so traumatic that they stand alone in memory blotting out everything in the immediate surroundings and time? All I can remember of that return trip to New York is the awful time in the storm when we were confined below decks. I mean, if it wasn’t for me doing my bit on the fo’csle she would still be tied fast to Southampton to this very day

And so I do appreciate your personal tour of the rest of the old girl, all new to me.

BTW, I’m surprised you didn’t have those 2 air horns away when no-one was looking.

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[peggydeckboy]

Hi Spardo were you a peanut? dbp.

[peggydeckboy]

Hi SPARDO were you a peanut dbp.

[spardo]

peggydeckboy:
Hi SPARDO were you a peanut dbp.

Sorry mate, that’s gone right over my head, twice.

[peggydeckboy]

WHAT sea school did you go to A PEANUT is YOUNG MAN16yearold that went to the sea training school in GRAVES END, why named PEANUT i do not know, i went to BLUE FUNNEL SEA TRAING SCHOOL ,or did i get your post wrong .i read it as if you were crew, no worries.dbp.

[spardo]

peggydeckboy:
WHAT sea school did you go to A PEANUT is YOUNG MAN16yearold that went to the sea training school in GRAVES END, why named PEANUT i do not know, i went to BLUE FUNNEL SEA TRAING SCHOOL ,or did i get your post wrong .i read it as if you were crew, no worries.dbp.

I was crew, but by a devious and different route, hence the confusion.
I went to the King Edward VII College for Merchant Navy Officers and if things had worked out would have gone to sea as a cadet eventually. But they didn’t, long story, and I became a lorry driver instead but always hankered to travel so I applied to British and Commonwealth Shipping Company directly and was given a berth in the St. John, a freighter in the small (3 ships) fleet of their subsiduary South American Saint Line, as a DHU. This rating was invented to allow Able Seamen from the Grey Funnel Line (Royal Navy) to transfer but, as the MN didn’t consider RN ratings as equals thus Deckhand Uncertificated.

I had left school at 16 to go to the college but as I was a couple of years older by the time I actually went to sea they decided I could hardly have the most junior rating, Junior Seaman, and wasn’t considered sufficiently qualified from my college training to warrant EDH (Efficient Deckhand) they dropped me into the old grey funnel slot. I wasn’t the only one on the St. John, there was a much older man who had transferred from the RN. I did wonder, not that I would ever do, if I back transferred to the RN would I magically become an AB (Able Seaman)? P’raps not.

The job on the St. John was granted on the condition that I studied at sea to become an officer, and I did during the 2 trips I did with her, but was so spoiled by that excellent ship and crew that when I moved on to much less welcoming ships I decided the life was not for me.

BTW most of my crewmates were trained at the Vindi (Vindicatrix ?) so I expect you came across some of those as well. Most of my family were MN Officers so I was definitely the black sheep for a time. Two Uncles, Grandfather and Two Great Grandfathers were all Master Mariners and my other Grandfather a Chief Engineer, which is why my Dad, his son, became an engineer, but not a seagoing one. I once ‘met’ my Uncle in the middle of the night in the Persian Gulf. I was on the 12 to 4 watch with the 2nd mate and he got ‘chatting’ by Aldis lamp with his opposite number on a Strick line ship heading the other way. Turned out that Uncle Harold was the captain and just happened to be on the bridge at the time, so we got to say brief hellos.

One slight sad edit. One of my Uncles never got to be a Captain, he went down with his ship as 3rd Mate, torpedoed off Newfoundland at the age of 23 in 1941. But another coincidence. As a lorry driver here in France I once loaded out of St. Nazaire and next door were the German U-Boat pens and I got to stand just where the captain who sank Uncle Reg must have stood when he boarded his submarine for that fatal voyage.

[peggydeckboy]

SPARDO, First of all i would like to say you very much for such a brilliant account of your MN service , i had heard of men on ships esp the large liners employed as DHU ,however never come across any one , also the VINDI BOYS never met one i think maybe the Gravesend school had taken over from them.

There was a SEA school at SHARPNESS ,also at ABERDOVEY,WALES,A BLUE FUNNEL FAMILY [ALFRED HOLT]for i think MIDDES also crew and a outwardbound school i am not sure about time spent there. also the WORCESTER for officers.
we could have past of the autoroute’s like ships in the night, thank you,dbp.

[spardo]

peggydeckboy:
SPARDO, First of all i would like to say you very much for such a brilliant account of your MN service , i had heard of men on ships esp the large liners employed as DHU ,however never come across any one , also the VINDI BOYS never met one i think maybe the Gravesend school had taken over from them.

There was a SEA school at SHARPNESS ,also at ABERDOVEY,WALES,A BLUE FUNNEL FAMILY [ALFRED HOLT]for i think MIDDES also crew and a outwardbound school i am not sure about time spent there. also the WORCESTER for officers.
we could have past of the autoroute’s like ships in the night, thank you,dbp.

She is no more, the Vindi, finished in 1966 and towed away to be scrapped, a sad end if you were one of her boys, but they have an association and reunions.

Here, if you want to read about her: gloucesterdocks.me.uk/sharp … catrix.htm

And I found my college too, although I got the name slightly wrong, but definitely the same place, I recognised the photos. Can you imagine it living in the hostel in west London and across London and back to Stepney every day? pwsts.org.uk/kingedward.htm

[essexpete]

Thank you guys for the history!

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[whisperingsmith]

> Spardo:
> I went to the King Edward VII College for Merchant Navy Officers and if things had worked out would have gone to sea as a cadet eventually.

I did a year at King Teds (as it was known) living In Sth Kensington halls of residence & then traveling on the underground to the classrooms in Whitechapel.

Did you sail on the training ship 'Glen Strathallan, quite an experience with the coal-fired boilers & triple expansion engine?

[spardo]

whisperingsmith:
> Spardo:
> I went to the King Edward VII College for Merchant Navy Officers and if things had worked out would have gone to sea as a cadet eventually.

I did a year at King Teds (as it was known) living In Sth Kensington halls of residence & then traveling on the underground to the classrooms in Whitechapel.

Did you sail on the training ship 'Glen Strathallan, quite an experience with the coal-fired boilers & triple expansion engine?

0

What year were you there, mine I reckon was 1959? According to the link I posted cadets were bussed across London and back each day, certainly weren’t in my time, it was back and forth as you say, on the tube. The halls of residence, as you put it, was a large house at the corner of Gloucester road and Cromwell road. When I got there I was used to the vigorous but non swearing tones of schoolmasters and wasn’t prepared for the world of adult language I found there. We were all sat round the fire in the common room when a man came in who was not a master but who blasted us all for ‘toasting our ■■■■■■■■ around the fire’. Even more shocking to me was one of the old sea captains who were in charge. I am not Jewish but my surname is not unlike a common Jewish surname. After asking who I was he growled back ‘what are you then, a bloody Jew?’

No to the Glen Strathallan, never heard of it before, the nearest we got to the water was the weekly rowing about the East India Dock in a whaler, much more fun than my experiences there in later years with my lorry.