We arrived safely in Moji, and when off duty, I was free to walk around the town. It was 1967 and the lack of English language signs was noticeable, considering that all of the other Japanese ports (about five or six) that I’d visited, had some western symbols, even if it was only a neon […]
1 Corinthians 16 : 13 – stand firm in the faith an apt moto. In a number of my blogs I have mentioned HMS Conway Nautical College, and some of my readers have asked various questions, so I thought I’d do a more detailed blog of ‘The Conway’. In the mid 1800’s Great Britain had the […]
What do people think of when they hear of a mutiny? Perhaps cinema’s effort to re-enact a mutiny helps us to think of – the mutiny on HMS Bounty, in April 1789 might come to mind. . or would it be the Indian Mutiny of 1857. . or a later mutiny aboard the Russian battleship […]
In 1926 Aggie married Charles Grey When one reads the history of Samoa, particularly through the 1800s to the mid-1900s the list of characters that flowed in and around Apia, the capital of Samoa, would keep a Hollywood producer in work for years. Aggie grew up across the road from the International Hotel and one […]
SS Shieldhall, used to be a Clyde ‘sludge boat’. 1972 GT, built in 1954 and now saved as a piece of history and maintained by volunteers. In 2012 she was repainted in the colours of R.M.S Titanic to mark the centenary of the sinking. She operates over the weekend as a pleasure steamer taking tourists […]
When I arranged our holiday in Vietnam for my wife and I, and our friends, we were all price sensitive, so I had to be careful of the costs. Flying out of Sydney we could fly with Vietnam Airlines or Qantas , but when I checked on the prices I realised that Vietnam Airlines had […]
There comes a time when you have to drag yourself away from the staff who are selling books. Space at home becomes a problem, because we live in a small house. A school near where we live has an annual ‘Big Day Out’ – food stalls, fairground, homemade jams, hand made jewelry and of course BOOKS! […]
To carry on from Singapore 1963 and all that . . .Our next port was Hong Kong. We anchored in the harbour, just a week after entering Singapore harbour. Once again the smell of Asia fired my imagination of day’s gone bye. They do say that you can smell money in Hong Kong – everyone […]
Sir Charles James Jessel. 1st Baronet (1860 – 1928) In 1899 the British North Borneo Company decided that the area, opposite Gaya island, on the main island of Borneo, was a good place to create a settlement. The area was developed and it was called Api-api (which means ‘fire’ in English) and later changed to […]
The red symbol is Nauru My next trip was to review our delivery agency in Nauru and two other Pacific Islands. To get to the other two islands I had to travel via Nauru, which under normal circumstances would not be a problem except that the Air Nauru service from Australia to Nauru was ‘intermittent’. […]
The normal high standard of Princess cruising has, in my opinion, slipped somewhat, but for us it started last year when we sailed in the Majestic Princess from Rome to Singapore. We have completed a total of nine cruises, seven of which were with Princess, so I think we can judge when standards are falling. […]
Finally, despite the rain, we managed to load all our Calcutta cargo in a dry state, as well as a number of passengers who were returning to the UK. The additional faces in the dining room and saloon expanded our conversational subjects beyond the sea and ships. Three nuns who were retiring from service joined us […]
Many of us have a book inside that we would like to write if we just knew how – I am not talking about putting pen to paper, but to construct a story that others would wish to read. For years I wanted to write and would throw away my attempts, because I was not […]
That house so tall and stark and bare, Stands for all of them out there, Without that house and friendly light Would mean a ship is lost this night. To see the light flash thro the rain, Means Old Lucifer has lost again. The wind it howls along the shore To freeze them all, both […]
