Breaker Morant Rule 303 a quote supposedly said by Harry “Breaker” Harbord Morant at his court martial in 1902, he was found guilty and shot by firing squad on the 27 February 1902, 118 years ago this week. Morant was played by Edward Woodward The film was released in 1980. We loaded the last piece of […]

A radio message arrived to inform us that we were to call at Trincomalee to pick up mail and to investigate the situation before leaving the area for Fremantle in Western Australia. This suited us all of us on board because picking up mail was one of the most important events for anyone at sea […]

On our return to Singapore I received a letter from head office informing me that I was to fly to Calcutta to join an Australian bound ship. More frequent flyer points lost . . . I flew to Calcutta and stayed at the Great Eastern Hotel, which had been a hotel since 1840 and it […]

Our next port of call was Tauranga – the above is of the sunrise as was we entered Tauranga harbour, which is a beautiful place to visit. Entering the harbour. Maureen & I were fortunate because our daughter in law’s parents live in Tauranga and had offered to be our guides for the day, and to […]

In 2010 eight of us (four couples) from Sydney thought it was time that we visited Indochina, and one of the countries on our list was Laos. We flew to Thailand (Bangkok) and then domestically to Chiang Mei. From Chiang Mei to Luang Prabang, which is in Laos, we decided to fly with Laos Air. […]

From the beginning the ship attracted a certain type of boy. 1860 Mathew Webb went on to be the first man to swim the English Channel. 1861 Warrington Baden Powell  later in life was the founder of the Sea Scouts. 1868 Admiral Sir  Sackville Carden Carden KCMG RN  was asked by Churchill, who was First Lord of the Admiralty, […]

I heard on the grapevine that a certain bar that I used to frequent in the 1960’s, in Georgetown, Penang, was still in existence. My wife and I and two other couples were passing through Penang, so I had to try and find my piece of yesterday. The bar was (is) called The Hong Kong […]

It was 1982 and things were ticking over nicely, but I was unhappy with our consignment notes that we handed out to our customers. The above example was produced as continuous stationery, partly to make the production easier and partly to maximise the stowage of new consignment notes into neat piles once the box was […]

M/V Chilka The Bay of Biscay and Gibraltar behind us and Chilka heads for Almeria on the southern coats of Spain. From memory it was a small town with few attractions for the cadets, but we loaded over 2000 barrels of grapes in to our freezer chambers destined for Mombasa, in Kenya. Chilka was not a freezer […]

Yesterday I noticed the above coloured banner across the top of the main page of my blog. I didn’t order it to be placed there, nor did I have anything to do with its appearance and have written to WordPress requesting its removal. I am colour blind as far as race, sexual orientation, religion and […]

After leaving Nuddea I was asked to attend an interview in London. I was a little apprehensive because I thought it was because of the near closing of Liverpool docks, when I asked a crane driver not to rip the bottom out of the cargo. It wasn’t, it was to tell me that I was […]

I think that the background of Skypak makes quite an interesting story. The seeds of the Company started in Japan, by two Australians. One had arrived in Japan as a member of the Australian occupying forces after the defeat of Japan and had remained after the formal end of the occupation in 1952. His command […]

Flag of Wales The Eisteddfod can be traced back to Cardigan Castle in 1176, when the House of Dinefwr, which was a royal house of Wales, supported the eisteddfod. The House of Dinefwr can be traced back to King of Gwynedd in 844. The above is the flag of Dinefwr. The Eisteddfod had it ups […]

It’s Always You Bing Crosby sang it to Dorothy Lamour, in Zanzibar of course . . . Christmas Day 1964 – we arrived off Mombasa and berthed alongside the Chakla, another Company ship. Also, in port was a BI passenger ship named ‘Karanja’ and this name had a family link for me. My father was […]