Wives On Board

[Jim Brady]

As we are told to keep off the wives only thread I would like to get through to Lin via this.If I was engineers steward and four engineers wives were on board would this mean that I would have four less cabins to look after?
Regards.
Jim.B.

[Gulliver]

As we are told to keep off the wives only thread I would like to get through to Lin via this.If I was engineers steward and four engineers wives were on board would this mean that I would have four less cabins to look after?
Regards.
Jim.B.

I always understood that a steward was employed to look after a cabin or cabins,irrespective of it's occupant(s),which involves cleaning it and changing the linen etc.


In practice,you would find that if a wife was on board,then she would do the cleaning ,and the steward would just supply clean linen and toiletries etc.



I also know that quite a few stewards welcomed wives on board- someone to chat to,share 'girly' moments etc. and relieve the monotony of their jobs...



I suppose next that someone is going to ask whether wives should serve themselves in the saloon !

[Jim Brady]

Gulliver,your remark to share a "Girly" moment.It was because of people with an attitude like yours that I always made sure nobody took the P out of me whose cabin I cleaned.I was there to keep a cabin clean I did not do tidy,personal belongings,clothes etc were left where they were dropped.I remember one time where an engineers cabin deck was covered in peanut shells.I left a dustpan and brush outside in the alleyway for him to clean them up.He came to the pantry to tell me i had not done his cabin,he was told when he picks all the peanut shells up the cabin would be done.He protested that the chief steward was in his cabin the night before,I told him to go and get the chf steward to give him a hand.If he did not clean them up I would go and get the Chf Eng. and Cpt to have a look at it.He cleaned them up PDQ.I might add that the engineers on here including the 2nd Eng. used to take their port holes dead light and brass fans down below on watch and buff them up,like a competition who had the best brass,but it was also in appreciation for how the accommodation was kept so clean.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[Chris Allman]

Oh Dear - handbags at dawn

Chris.

[Glennys Faulds]

As an engineer's wife who spent some time at sea with him I didn't expect the steward to clean our cabin, but he insisted on doing so, mainly because my husband used to let him help himself to a nip or two of whisky, I suspect.

On the other hand, being the only woman on board could get pretty boring at times so I spent quite a bit of time in the galley "helping" the cook. I've never forgotten the way he taught me to make perfect bread rolls, a skill I haven't lost despite the passage of more years than I care to remember.

[happy daze john in oz]

Having served as an officers steward with UCL I can tell you I saw some very odd events when the wives were aboard. Cheif officer had his on one voyage and spent the whole voyage sleeping in an empty junior engineers cabin. Very often early morning the officers steward in charge would be seen creeping from that said cabin.As for the 'girly' bits I see nothing wrong with a comment that in many instances was very true, particularly with UCL and P&O. One voyage we had the storemans wife on board, you would never meet a nicer lady. Ate in the P.O. dinning room and was loved by all there in.

[Gulliver]

Gulliver,your remark to share a "Girly" moment.It was because of people with an attitude like yours that I always made sure nobody took the P out of me whose cabin I cleaned

Jim.B.

Well,Jim,you're making me laugh more than anything. Not all stewards are girlie or even gay Silly you !- although anyone joining a British Merchant Navy vessel in the 60's might think otherwise when seeing the swarms of white-coated serving gentlemen sashaying through the accommodation...
I have a good mate down the local who does a fabulous cross-stitch,and you ought to see his precisely arranged knick-knacks on his beautifully dusted sideboard,in his spotlessly clean apartment.
He's a Waiter in a restaurant in town...and I assure you,or so I'm told by the ladies ,he's every inch a man..
Great guy-just as my stewards were at sea,except for one screamin'queen,Dolores,who 'accidentally' scooped the contents of the breakfast-time 'lazy Susan' onto my lap,because she thought I'd passed a remark about' her' coiffure looking particularly dishevelled one morning after the Pakistani Navy (or some-other tin-pot fleet )had been visiting Singapore... or maybe because I'd rejected her ‘advances’ the previous day.
Kedgeree ,fried eggs and cocoa-pops on an immaculate white uniform (I’d laundered them myself as usual)make an unholy mess..
They were all good shipmatess,and later,on the Asian catering crew ships,(Indian,then -Filipino) the service too was very good-rather obsequious for want of a better word)but I missed the 'interaction' you always get with your own nationality crew.
Hope you can see where I'm coming from.
Homophobic prejudice and a perception of stewards‘being girlie’ are two different things.
One is a serious issue,the other is an often unjustly applied ,but tolerated(accepted) conception by seafarers of our generation,and therefore I suppose written into our history. I don’t know enough about present day practices, and attitudes aboard ship to comment-but it must have changed quite drastically I think.
Male Airline Cabin Crew on the other hand…..

Respects
Gulliver
-

[stevesherratt]

Hi my wife sailed with me and she had a great time and in particular the Cabin Stewards became great pals thought the voyages, Sue cleaned our cabin and made sure the coffee was on when the Engineers Steward was in our Alleyway. She treated them all well and with respect and in turn without exception they looked after her.

I recall one trip she went ashore on shopping trips at both St Nicholas Aruba and also at Macy’s in New York in search of a “See though Blouse” for “Vicky” the Engineers Steward. Sue and I look back fondly on the times we shared at sea, of course it’s a rich vein of humor, meaning above all not to offend anyone.

I look at the Old Girl now and think, did she really come aboard in Fawley in a Leather miniskirt! and did someone really steal her Dhobi from the officers laundry on her first trip!!

We often laugh at the memories and I still maintain it was the Second Mate who nicked the Dhobi.

Hey Ho, we are both looking forward to the Liverpool Meet Up so set the lantern swinging…….

Steve R770014 South Derbyshire

[Lin Treadgold]

Movies - yes those things that you watch ten times over because someone forgot to swap the movies at the last port.

Anyway there was this scary movie that the Chief Steward had seen before. He was very good at crotchet - yes crotchet. He kept his bottom draw full of items he had made for his wife and family during his time at sea. They were wonderful..Now you might think what have movies and crotchet got to do with each other?

Well we were in the saloon when a tense moment in the film was about to take place. The steward was sat there crotcheting as usual during the film. There was a point in the story where a cat jumped out of no-where and he knew the precise moment to do it - he waited and when it happened he threw his ball of wool onto the lap of the midi in the seat in front of him. The poor guy almost had a heart attack when he thought the furry ball was the cat in the movie.

Lin x

[Phil Crawley]

I was engineers steward a few times with wives on board, and I have to say all of them were Ladies, never had to do the cabins and just gave them clean linen on change days, they would even come to the engs pantry and get their own cups of tea, maybe I was lucky, as I have heard some horror stories.
Phil Crawley.