Purser or Supercargo

[Roger French]

When most of Paddy Henderson's ships were chartered to Elder Dempster they carried Pursers and Writers from ED, and I don't think any one of them carried passengers.

On ED ships the Purser, Writer, (and occasionally Purser Cadet) were the "office" of the ship. It did seem at times that relative to other departments they were under-employed, particularly on long sea passages, but I never harboured the resentment some seem to feel. They had a job to do, and if at times it was easier than others, well, so be it.

[Ray McCerery]

When most of Paddy Henderson's ships were chartered to Elder Dempster they carried Pursers and Writers from ED, and I don't think any one of them carried passengers.

On ED ships the Purser, Writer, (and occasionally Purser Cadet) were the "office" of the ship. It did seem at times that relative to other departments they were under-employed, particularly on long sea passages, but I never harboured the resentment some seem to feel. They had a job to do, and if at times it was easier than others, well, so be it.

#5:- John seems a sad old man, but he gave me a good laugh improving the cateringI spent almost fifty years at sea over twenty five as Ch/Stwd/Purser had a few beers same as most, but sailed with quite a few senior OFFICERS that had a problem with the drink, but live and let live eh, also regarding bonded store prices they were either company or masters bond, company informed you of the % and Master usually put between 10% - 20% on his bond, unless I had a copy of the invoice, then we had a 5%.

Regarding cargo purser I was under the impression that they were employed mainly in EDs and Palm line, nothing to do with the catering.

Ray R700934.

[Jim Brady]

Writers.Yes we had Engineers Writer and Second Stewards Writer.The Engineers Writer wrote up the log or whatever it was that went on down below.The Second Stewards Writer was a waiter he wrote up all the overtime etc tobe passed to the Purser.He also recieved all the mail which he distributed.As the Second Stewards Writer he was paid the overtime plus he was expected to get a "Good Show".A "Good Show" being what the Head Waiter thought was a couple of tables which he thought would be "Good Tippers" so in other words he got the best of the bloods!!!It did'nt always work out that way,you would've had to be in the stewards messroom on docking day to see waiters nearly in tears.I must do a posting some time about the "Money Go Round" on the passenger ships,I would say it was the nearest thing to "Socialism" or "Communisim" that you would come across.If a waiter or bedroom steward got £100 tips it was'nt his to keep,OK he was front line but the backroom staff wanted their share and if he did'nt cough up it would be "Woed be tied him" (0r something like that) on future trips as he would be ostracized and he would not get the service of the backroom staff as the waiters that tipped would.As a Bell Boy working in the saloon I used to get a Dollar (US or Can)or 10 bob a head off all the waiters Montreal and Liverpool it was more than my wages..I must post a good story on this again.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[j.sabourn]

Ray re. your post Company/Master bond. The few times I had the bond as master, the only thing I ever took from it was, I never paid for my own beverages. As there were usually company expenses you could claim this brought it down even further, so the bond was sold practically at the same price as I bought. Going back a bit further in time Cigarettes used to be bought out of Bond at 38 shillings a thousand and most masters sold at 12 shillings a carton (200) so they obviously made a profit. The argument was put up that the Ch. Stwd. had to be paid and the bond had to be insured. The ships I was on latterly did not have the comforts of a chief steward, I never insured the bond so to speak so was able to practically give away at knock down prices. As regards liqour which was also sold cheap ( before the no drink crap they brought out) I never saw it abused at sea and most of the crew retained for consumption in port. I have seen Masters bonds abused re prices and I never agreed that in principle that untaxed profits should be made by certain individuals who took advantage of it. However I think this was done by only a very few. Cheers John Sabourn.

[happy daze john in oz]

In repoly to Jim, share you tips with the back room boys. mate if you had ever beena winger with UCl you would have needed a hacksaw to cut the Tikki's in half to share around.

[robpage]

I was always under the impression with UCL that the tips made by bedroom stewards ,Wingers , Bathoom Stewards , were not huge , and they kept the whole tip , but had to see their service providers "Right " , or the next trip things were less easy for them . I think there was a "Tranche " system ( If that is the correct spelling , ) in place in the bars , where the Head Barman collected all the tips and shared them out in a sliding proportion , I think the system also encompassed some of the profit made in the sale of refrigerated water that was the taste was distinctly noticeable as was the strength . There were also bottles of spitits used when a punter asked for a neat spirit instead of one with a shovel full of ice in it . I am certain that this "Fund " and the tips were added together and allocated out at arrival Southampton . I wondered how far this went upwards from the Chief Barman , but never knew . There was an incident when sending the Blue Uniforms up three days before Las Palmas Northbound , the engineers steward returned and suggested that the Head laundryman was looking for a donation of Scotch , or the Uniforms would not be back until the night before Southampton . The Senior Second Engineer was not impressed , and the steam supply valve at the end of the Tunnel was closed firmly , for urgent services to be carried out . Took about four hours fo the pressed uniforms to get returned and another four before the Steam valve was returned to service . The enginers steward got a bottle of scotch from us each at the end of teh trip , and he redistributed some of them to his service suppliers , in stores and certain galley departments , to ensure his suppliers were on side the next trip .

I dearly would not offend any purser catering officers here , but there were a few who worked the system to their own ends . The weights that the crew provisions were weighed with , remembering that these guys were fed on 1/2 our 13/8 p (65p) a day were Drilled out , we tried them on the engineer's scales and they were all underweight , so crew meat and vegetables , weighed out daily were short issued , this meant that a lamb surpless was fed to the ship's officers , and something somewhere got sold off , or not provided . I think from my cargo ship service that around 50% of the Purser catering officers were at some kind of fiddle , Some of the brilliant absolutly styraight ones , seemed tpo provide so much more , and I am sure that it was not down to skill in menus , or better management . One of the best that I ever came across , food and entertainment , wa s Mr James ( Mothewr ) Harper in Clan Line , he could make that 13 shillings and eight pence go so much further , and the bangladeshi crew were not short changed either . Jimmy's pastries and cakes were brilliant , often made by him in person . One of the worst I sailed with was a Hotel manager from a shoreside hotel , who had done the course and passed his ship's cook certificate , but had never done the job , and after a year as an assistant purser / catering officer was let loose on his own . He faired very well , and we ate more MK ( Moslem killed ) lamb than a kebab house waiter . and little beef , no chicken , then the beef that was on board , best "Scotch " beef transformed itself overnight in Cape Town to botswanan beef . In Gulf oil we weer provisioned with a greater rate , and Steak on Sunday was the normal way , good cooks , but this changed with a new chief steward who had modern ways , and the steaks stopped , the boiled eggs were so small that they fell below the rim of the egg cup , the Captain would hear no ill spoken about the man from anyone , which made me believe that there was a fiddle going on .

When it comes to the allegations of drunkeness though , I think that was wide spread in my time at sea , and the Zeebrugge disaster was a huge wake up call , maybe , all departments had persons there who had drunk too much for too long , hey getting out possibly saved my liver !!!

[John Arton]

I seem to have upset one or two of you who thought I was running down certain departments on board.
That is certainly wrong, any decent sailor soon finds out that a ship is only as good as the sum of all its parts and that to be successful all parts have to work together and none to consider themselves superior to another, no such thing as oil and water when I was sailing.
My observations were from experience.
All shipping companies in the 70/80's were looking at reducing manning and as by that time most of us were company contract men and wages etc. were all done by head office and paid directly to your bank, the traditional role of the purser on cargo and tanker ships had diminished. C.P. decided (probably along with some other companies) to combine the catering and pursers dept into one. Of the purser/chief stewards I sailed with I guess it was a 50/50 split as to there original jobs, but after the sale of the last Empress then quite a number of the pursers from the Empress became Purser/Chief Stewards on the cargo ships. This was at a time when C.P. was expanding rapidly so there was basically a job for any of the ex. Empress purser who wanted it.
On the Empress they were the personnel who had the most contact with the passengers and were expected to attend in the passenger lounges on a daily basis, hence them getting entertainment allowance, which I certainly never begrudged and beside which, as a very junior officer my only contact with the passengers was when I conducted bridge tours. Our strict instructions should we be accosted by a passenger whilst going about our duties or going to the dining saloon, wwas "to make polite conversation and move on as quickly as possible". Only seniorOfficers were allowed into passenger lounges etc.
The only other time I would come into contact with a passenger would be on night rounds at 0200 with the Master at Arms or if an incident were to occur involving a passenger during the night when I was on watch.
There was one such incident where a passenger had found another passenger in his cabi on two seperate occasions. The second time occurred just after midnight when his wife came out of the shower naked only to be confronted by this passenger. This was a bit too much for her husband and he chased the guy out of his cabin and around the decks waving a knife that he had.
Myself and the deck crew were called and we managed to seperate the two, locking the offender in his cabin whilst I took the victim to the lounge and poured scotch down his throat to calm him down. I genuinely believed that if this guy had caught the offender he would have done serious injury to him as he was an ex. U.S. Marine. When it all kicked off the call had gone out for the night duty purser to attend but for some unknown reason it took an age for him to turn up. By the time he did the victim was half pizzed after me pouring scotch down him and had calmed down somewhat, whilst the offender was locked in his cabin with an A.B. on guard outside.
For some unknown reason the night purser (presumably one of the junior ones), after listening to our expanation of events, turned to the victim and asked him if he was not making up the story or at least being a bit over the top by chasing the offender with a knife. This did not sit well with the victim and we had to hurry the purser awy before he got attacked by the passenger.
The purser chief stewards I sailed with were in the main very fine guys but if they were ex. pursers, so long as they had a good 2nd steward and cook, there was very little for them to do regarding catering on a daily basis and I cannot recall any of them taking a cooks ticket.
Like every other dept. there was the odd bad one. The purser/chiefstewards who had been chief steward before getting landed with the pursers side of thing were in the minority and all the ones I sailed with were excellent guys.
The purser chief stewards used ti run the company bond which was not a particularly hard task.
Eventually C.P. decided that they could reduce manning even more by removing this rank all together, turning the bond into a masters bond, getting the master to do a very simplyfied portage bill and paying the chief cook a few extra quid to take on the chief stewards job after they also removed the 2nd steward. There was a lot of objection to this from all of us on board but in typical ship owner fashion it was take it or leave it.
The net result of it all was as I said in previous post, was that Masters had to take a greater interest in and have a more hands on approach to the purser/chief stewards dept. than before. Deep sea it really was not too difficult task, though there were a few master who grumbled a lot and thought it was below them, but then again they grumbled about everything and thought they were greater than anything. It is true that Masters bond had cheaper prices and on some ships the catering did actually improve but in my original post I was certainly not trying to tar all with the same brush and to try and make out that I do not consider a certain dept. of lesser importance is absolute B.S. and I will not go into that subject anymore.
I hope I assuaged anyone who felt put out by my original post as I certainly never intended the post to be in anyway a condemnation of a particular dept. on board. Believe me, especially when I was master on coastal chemical tankers, I understood that the catering was as important as anything else, in fact I used to let my cooks know that I considered them so important as without good food correctly cooked and plenty of it, there was no way that the rest of the ship could function correctley. Basically we were in port every two days, in between ports there was tank cleaning or dmaintenance so we were all working around 60/70 hrs per week or more at times, so good food was paramount.
rgds
Capt. John Arton (ret'd)

[John Callon]

Well as I was the one who took your original posting on this subject as offensive, I thank you for your comments. I agree their is always the bad apple in every barrel whether it be Deck, Engine or Catering. As I previously stated I have no knowledge of how CPS operated. However for the record I do have a Ships Cooks Certicicate of Competancy and sailed as 3rd Chef on the Mauretania and again on the Caronia. This was after sailing as Assistant Purser. I felt it was imperative that if one was to achieve ones goal i.e. in my case the Pursers job then you had to know every aspect of catering and I don't mean how to cook a Cheese Beano, a dish which, in my opinion should be consigned to the garbage chute. No doubt somebody will disagree. About the Cheese Beano I mean and not the garbage chute.
Perhaps you will now see where I am coming from. Again thank you for your posting. I think it would be prudent if we could shake hands and forget the whole issue.
Regards
John

[John Arton]

No offence intended or taken
Certainly respect all those fine ships cooks and chefs who spent years training and learning their craft. One of my daughters is a chef so I know how hard they work and boy do I like my food, as evidenced by my bulging waistline
rgds
John A

[Chris Hartley]

I was a cargo purser with Thos & Jos Harrison of Liverpool on the MV Diplomat way back in 1966.