Memories

[happy daze john in oz]

Bring back memories? Do you miss your time on board? If so, read on............

1. Build a shelf in the top of your wardrobe, fit a thin mattress and sleep on top of it.
2. Remove the wardrobe door and replace it with a curtain that is too small.
3. Wash your socks and underpants in the bathroom sink every night, then hang them on the water pipes to dry.
4. Four hours after you have gone to bed, instruct your wife to whip open the curtain, shine a torch in your face and say, "Sorry mate, wrong pit!"
5. When you have a shower, remember to turn the water off when you soap.
6. Every time there is a thunderstorm, sit in a wobbly rocking-chair and rock as hard as you can until you are violently sick.
7. Put diesel oil into a humidifier and set it on high to achieve that wonderful Ship Aroma.
8. Don't watch TV except for a movie at 2030. For added realism, have the family vote for which movie to have and then select a different one.
9. Leave a lawnmower running in the house to re-create correct noise levels.
10.Have the postman or paperboy give you a haircut fortnightly.
11.Once a week, blow compressed air up your chimney, ensuring that the soot is carried over to your neighbour's home. When he comes to complain, laugh in his face and say "That's life in a blue suit mate"
12.Buy a rubbish compactor, but only use it once a week, storing all of your rubbish in the shower cubicle.
13.Wake up at midnight each night and make a sandwich out of anything you can find.
14.Have a fridge in your home specifically for beer. put a lock on it and give the key to the local policeman.
15.Keep spare keys for above and empty it every lunchtime.
16.Devise your family menu a week in advance without looking in the fridge or freezer.
17.Once a month, take apart every household appliance then re-assemble them.
18.Use four spoonfuls of coffee per cup and wait 3 hours before drinking it.
19.Invite 40 people you don't like, to stay in your house for a couple of months.
20.Install a small fluorescent strip light under your coffee table then lie underneath it to read a book.
21.Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of all the doors in the house, so you will either bang your head or skin your shins every time you pass through them.
22.When baking a cake, prop one side of the cake tin against the side of the oven and when it has cooled, spread icing thickly on lower side to even it out.
23.Every so often throw one of the kids into the bath and scream "Man overboard!" Sling in a sponge with a flag on it, then run into the kitchen and sweep all the pots and pans onto the floor and yell at your wife for not securing for sea.
24.Get your wife and kids to clean their rooms every evening and at 1900 wander around the house with the local policeman.
25.Name your favourite shoes "Steaming Bats" then get the kids to hide them around the house.
26.Lie on your bed, or sofa and fart for absolutely no reason.
27.Insist on going to the local post office for your mail and get them to phone you when it is ready for collection.
28.On Saturday morning walk around the house, whistling loudly and insist that everyone you pass stands to attention.
29.Paint the outside of your house battleship grey and put the number on the wall in big black letters.
30.Put windows and a bloody big wheel in your loft.
31.Every Thursday at 0500 in the morning, run around the house yelling "Hands to Action Stations!"
32.Roll up a soft porn magazine and stick it behind the cistern in the toilet all of your visitors can read it.

[j.sabourn]

John, when I retired at 65, my wife hired a canal cruiser in Mandurah (bareboat Charter ??) had about 50 friends, grog and everything, to celebrate. It was the last thing I needed to be on anything that floated as was looking on retirement as the great escape from everything nautical. That was 11 years ago and as time works wonders, my memorys now return to where I spent most of my life. The most hard thing I found on coming ashore was the different way people thought and the actions they took. However whenever I think or used to, about returning to sea, I used to remind myself how shipping was today, and just think how lucky as many on this site do, of having experienced the times when the job had at least Job Satisfaction. Nowadays shipping to me has no job satisfaction. Cheers John Sabourn

[happy daze john in oz]

Yes John, times sure have changed as well as the people ashore. Very few appear able to think outside the square the way we sometimes had to.

[John Gill]

Well put together John-loved number 24.
gilly

[Captain Kong]

Hi John,
a few years agp when I retired I took my cassette recorder on the Mersey Ferry and recorded the engines under way from the top of the engine room and played that at night when I went to bed, SHE was not amused.heers
Brian
Cheers

[Jim Brady]

When I sailed on the container ship it had been 35 years since I had been deep sea.You do forget about the sound of the engines as Brian said he recorded the ferry boat enginges but you also forget about the different things that rattle.The first night I turned in,no chance of getting asleep a wardrobe door was rattleing with the vibration.a cardboard wedge made from a cigarette packet soon put that right,I think it took about three nights before I had sorted out each annoyance.
Regards.
Jim.B.

[cappy]

even got used to sleeping over the steering flat and could tell who was at the wheel regards cappy

[j.sabourn]

The only sound awaking me was if the engines stopped. Used to lie there praying on some ships that they kept going. Any change in the movement of the ship was also a great way of bringing one back from semi sleep. On most of the smaller tonnage I was on with a master and mate it was 6 on and stop on. John Sabourn

[j.sabourn]

If that was on the Avonmoor Cappy must have been like a sauna as was the old steam quadrant , steam everywhere. Spent the best part of 3 days down there on first trip to sea watching the dead body of a greaser who had died, and was laid out on a hatch board. After 3 days before burial the old man came aft and asked every crew member if they were satisfied that the man was dead. It would only have taken one seaman to say he wasnt happy about it and I think I would have tried to kill him. Have informed the Harbour Master to expect a weird looking vessel with a big Angel as a bowsprit next year. Cheers John Sabourn PS Misread your post thought you said in the steering flat, and you say over it, all the deck and engine accomodation was around this area if memory correct. Anyhow would have kept you warm in the cold weather. Cheers John Sabourn

[Richard Quartermaine]

John#1
Definitely 24.
And as Kipling pointed out - If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a (Sailor) my son!

John #2
It seems like so many people don't seem to care about anything but self gratification any more.

Richard