Merchant Navy Memories - Our Golden Days
Welcome to my web site. My name is Gordon Tumber and I spent 28 years in all in the Catering Department.
I graduated, or was let out on fairly good behaviour, from the Gravesend Sea School in January 1952. Some time before it went all posh and called itself a College. We called it many things but College was not among them.
My memories of this are of hunger, hairy blankets and the cold wind of change. Especially on the Thames in December. All cheerfully accepted as you lay awake at night listening to the busy tugs manoeuvering those beautiful Ocean Liners that sailed in and out of Tilbury Docks every week. Adventure was waiting patiently in the wings.
The history of this well remembered establishment by all who gritted their teeth and stayed the course is splendidly recorded in the book School for Seamen by Roy Dereham MBE.
I first shipped out on the r.m.s Strathnaver as Junior Catering Rating (Bell Boy to the less informed) and served at various times with Companies sadly long disappeared into the mist of Merchant Navy history.
On the long haul to the top I served my time as A/Stwd in both Tourist and First Class Saloon, Wine Waiter, Ship's Writer, 2nd Passenger Steward, Ships Cook, Cook/ Steward and finally emerged as Purser/Catering Officer to the joy and delight of at least me.
I even have a couple of entries in my Discharge Book under the archaic title of Assistant Boots. This was when I worked for Union-Castle Line on the Southampton to South Africa run and was a relic of the days when First Class passengers put their shoes outside their cabins at night and showed extreme faith the same pair would be there in the morning, Cleaned of course.
My contribution to the scheme of things was to keep a record of all crockery in stock and distributed around the ship. A record that was wildy inaccurate after heavy weather, and the actions of disaffected 'Wingers' (stewards) who preferred to stow their crockery in Davey Jones locker in preference to mine.
I went ashore for ten years between 1967 and 1976 to run pubs with my wife, and help her raise our five children. Those long sea voyages have a lot to answer for.
My main objective in opening this my first site (it went public October 2001) is to winkle out the Old Boys from Gravesend NSTS/C and get them to join the recently formed Association.
Considering the annual output there has to be thousands out there somewhere.
But most of all I hope to encourage as many Merchant Seamen as possible, retired or still active, to contribute their experiences anecdotes and photographs to build up a picture of life at sea in different eras before we are all as cold as the Galley Stove in dry-dock.
Many will recall those early years at sea on Passenger Liners where catering ratings were crowded into cabins of twelve to fifteen bunks with only a bunk curtain for some degree of privacy. Hard wooden benches as the only furniture, metal lockers to stow your gear and meals taken standing up in the First or Tourist Class Galley.
Not surprisingly a lot of men moved on to the comparative luxury of double berth cabins on cargo ships and tankers. They will also remember the flat tins and boxes of 50 cigarettes of well known brands that were available for 5/- (25p) for 200. Brands such as State Express 555, Players, Senior Service and Export Woodbines. Shoreside Woodbines were much smaller. There was also the round sealed tins of tobacco that smelled so sweet when first opened. Deck and Engineroom men will remember the weekly (or was it fortnightly ?) issue of condensed milk that they lightly piereced with two small holes and plugged them with matchsticks to stop the cockroaches getting in.
So welcome to my site. Drop anchor any time and bring your memories with you. You will always be sure of a warm welcome. Tea and tabnabs at Smoko.
Remember the excitement when that prospectus plopped through the letter box and set us on the road to the National Sea Training Schools? Dreams of adventure and foreign travel were about to be realised as we filled in the application form that would see us starting our training at the Gravesend Sea\School or the Vindicatrix at Sharpness.
Thanks to Robin Hurst, Site Bosun for the Vindicatrix website , you can now download a replica of that prospectus. The only bit missing is the application form that Robin made use of himself. Click onto Bosun’s Ditty Box for details
ADVICE TO A YOUNG MAN
Grab this life while you may son-go abroad,see what you can
For this world changes quickly, as you grow into a man;
So many things you'd best do-while fit and in your prime,
Take things at the flood young lad,ahead of Father Time;
Don't wait until you're older- and reap the mental pain
Of lamenting wasted youth, and wanting time again.
Captain Joe Earl
Joe's Page
WHAT IS A SEAMAN Between the security of childhood and the insecurity of second childhood we find a fascinating group of humanity that comes in assorted shapes, sizes and states of sobriety. They are found on ships, ashore, in love, in passenger accommodation, but always in debt. Girls love them. Towns tolerate them and calabooses all over the world provide them with overnight shelter. The Seaman is easiness with a deck of cards, brave with a bellyful of hooch, the world’s best buyers of ‘Men Only’ and other such artistic literature. He has the energy of a tortoise, brains of an idiot, yarns of an old ‘Sea Dog’ and the slyness of a fox Some of his interests are women, girls, females and the opposite sex. Hid dislikes are work, answering letters, inspections, the call to “Turn To” and ships food. No one else can cram into his back pocket a Seamen’s Book, Union Card, I.D, train ticket, a photo of his wife or girlfriend, three unanswered letters, a crushed packet of smokes, a comb, the remains of his Pay Off and the odd peso, peseta or franc. A Seaman is an amazing creature. You can lock him out of your home-but not your heart. You can wipe him of your writing list but not your mind. He is your life, your one and only good for nothing bundle of worry, and all your shattered dreams are insignificant when he looks at you with those bleary bloodshot eyes, gives a lopsided grin and says “Hello love-I’m Home.
Good news for those who care about the past. Not only has the new Queen Mary been launched this year ( a pity,with our proud history of ship building, that it had to be built in France) but it looks like a resurgence of interest in that magnificent Old Lady the ss United
States may see her back it sea in the future. Click below for more information.
ss United States
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