A free Ride!

[Doc Vernon]

Cannot remember exactly how far we were off Docking at Southampton,but I was on Either the Stirling or Winchester at the time! (Memory fade)
Anyway it was approx. a day or possibly a few Hours that I took ill in the Dining Saloon,whilst serving my table of Bloods,i suddenly got this terrible pain in my left side,had a handful of plates full of Grub,and just went down like a sack of Bricks!

Next thing I recall was awakening in the Ships Sick Bay,not feeling at all well,the Ships Surgeon came in and said 'Lad you have a very bad Appendix and its near the danger stage" well that didn't help any but what could I do.
He said that we were Steaming into Southampton as fast as possible,and just said to relax !
Yea relax!

Anyway seems that I was pretty lucky and got into the Military Hospital in Southampton on time,as later told had it been futher out at Sea.i may not have made it!
Whew! Luck was with me then!

Spent a Week at the Hospital,nice place and good Food,got real good looking after too!

On the second day however my late Brother came to see me and made all kinds of Jokes to make me laugh,not the right thing I can tell you,as it was hurting so much when laughing!

Anyway that Evening still sorry and sore,we crept out of the Ward (well it was actually Single Rooms there)
I hobbled with Greg to the Bus stop and caught the Bus to Southampton,where we of course went to the Pub and a few good Schooners!

On getting back no one saw me entering,so thought all was fine!
Wrong !!
The next Morning when the Doctor came on his rounds,he saw straight away that something was amiss with me! Yes I was still intoxicated! LOL

I got a really good bollocking from him,but he calmed down and later said what a silly Young man I had been!

On day five I was given the OK to go back,and then after 10 days rejoined another Ship!

What we got up to in those days!
Cheers

[Lou Barron]

Well Vernon did it learn you anything dont we all do silly things when we were younger .You was very lucky

[Doc Vernon]

Lou my Friend
I have learnt so much in my days,took some knocks first but learnt!
Cheers

[John Pruden]

we are to stubborn to let our brains tell our bodies that we can't do the same as we did in our youth? inside we are all still kids{well I am}and if you get knocked down get back up life is for living been dead I don't want to go back yet to busy?

[happy daze john in oz]

Not nice Vernon as i had the same thing at the tender age of 13. But it could have been worse, a touch of the channels and too much grog the night befiore!!!!!

[Richard Quartermaine]

13!! - unlucky for some as the bingo caller says.
Richard

---------- Post added at 09:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:23 PM ----------

In October 1948 I had a lousy job cleaning bathrooms on the Adelaide Steamship's MV Manunda. Half way across the Great Australian Bight I got very high fever and was confined to my bunk and by the time we got to Fremantle I was really very, very crook so an ambulance was waiting that took me up to Fremantle Hospital. After a couple of days the Doc pronounced that I had malaria, and that my spleen was swollen. They quickly got the temperature down and in a couple of weeks I got out and immediately had this terrible pain in the guts so went back to casualty. I had appendicitis! No beds available so I was sent around to the Bundi Kooja maternity hospital in Fremantle. The Chaiacking I got from the nurses was accepted as par for the coarse so when I got out I took her out. The Manunda was far away by this time and I was quite happy that she was. By the way, the young fellow in the bed next to me in Freo Hospital had a practice chanter. The real McCoy would have woken up the ward!
Richard

[Captain Kong]

When I was in hospital in the Seamens Drednought Hospital Greenwich, for a minor operation, I was in for two weeks, The ward was full of seafaring commedians, some I had sailed with previously.
I was able to walk about easily, so they would have a tarporlin muster, I would take my dungarees and shirt with me to the bathroom and get changed, climb through the window and down the fire escape ladder. Across the road was the Cricketers Pub, I would have a couple of pints and then buy bottles of Rum for the lads.
Then back up the ladder and get changed again in the bathroom and then onto the ward and all hands would be on the Rum. We used to end up dancing with the Nurses who all came from Barbados, One, Miss Piggy, was drunk on the rum, flaked out on my bed smoking a ciggy, when the Matron came in to see what the noises were, I dived on the bed, miss Piggy fell out and rolled under the next bed. The Matron had her sacked. All hands had a petition and were shouting about it. so she was reinstated. again.
Happy hospital that was.
Cheers
Brian.

[Richard Quartermaine]

Brian, I was in the Dreadnaught Seamens Hospital in Greenwich in October 1950 to get my tonsils out that was botched up in Wellington, NZ. The ward was as big as a football pitch and the Matron was a real big Valkyrie of a woman - she was Polish and very authoritarian. I was there for about a week or more and then sent off to the rehab place in Cudham, Kent. It turned out that she was quite a nice woman under the ferocious exterioir. I drew a sketch with a poem of a curtain surrounded bed with vapours rising above.

Whilst recovering from an illness
I was terribly annoyed
For the toilet was denied me
And a bed pan was employed

I much prefer the thunder mug
but this was out of scope
The sister said
"Now listen son'
This pan's you only hope

The nurse produced a tiny screen
but odour spreads like smoke
A coughing patient held his nose
and cried "Hey that's no joke..................

My memory's failing me but I went on to bring in the matron into the poem. Of course she wanted to know what was going on. Anyway, the nurse who I took out later told me she put it up on the wall of her office.

It was a happy hospital.
Cheers
Richard

[gray_marian]

#7, Captain!! The more I read of your exploits it reminds me of my husband
and he can be a nightmare Life is never dull though

#8, And Richard, what a lovely man you are

[happy daze john in oz]

13!! - unlucky for some as the bingo caller says.
Richard

---------- Post added at 09:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:23 PM ----------

In October 1948----The real McCoy would have woken up the ward!
Richard

Gin and Tonic Richard, the quinine in the tonic keeps the malaria away and if you do get a bite from a mozzie they fall of you half sozzled.