In the mid 1960’s I paid off a ship in Khorramshahr, (which is in Iran) and drove to Abadan (still in Iran) to fly Iran Air to Tehran to catch a BOAC (now called British Airways) flight to the UK. This was before the fall of the Shah of Persia, which didn’t happen until 1979. This […]
It is fifty years since Richmal Crompton died at the age of 78 in 1969. Her original idea was to write stories of children for adults, but they ended up becoming favourites of the children instead, and still are today. Over 12 million copies of her books were sold in the UK, at the time […]
We decided to visit Hahndorf, which is in the Adelaide hills, and a short drive from Adelaide in South Australia. The town was original settled by Prussians from Europe. They arrived in 1838 off the ship ‘ Zebra’ under the command of a Dane called Dirk Meinhertz Hahn. The voyage out was very unpleasant, but […]
In southern Scotland there is an area that used to be called Peebleshire, until 1975 when Scotland abolished counties as local government areas. Robert Barclay of Glasgow, founded an engineering & ship building company in 1818, and and over the years it grew in size. In 1875 he built the first four-masted, iron-hulled fully rigged […]
James Brooke (29th April 1803 – 11 June 1868) The picture is from a painting by Sir Francis Grant in 1847 Sarawak, the name brings forth ideas of head hunters and ‘daring do’ from comics that I read in the 1950’s. Little did I know that one day I would sail up the Sarawak River to the town […]
During my travels I have flown with quite a few airlines, from bone shakers and certain national carriers that shouldn’t have been allowed to fly, to airlines that have won awards year after year. Some people have made negative comments about the low cost carriers, but one low cost carrier, for me, stands out as […]
When 4780 vaults, containing the remains of people, becomes a tourist attraction, it can be hard to think of them as no longer alive. Recleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires is such a place – the above photograph is the entrance to the cemetery. I’m not sure but I think the last person to be entombed […]
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! […]
