Allegedly the instructions sent to Interforce security guards ( many are ex-military) on 17 March 2022.Note the comment about ‘Cuffs, Utility belt and Body Armour?’ Against long-serving employees who had done nothing wrong.Remember the miners’ strike? Well, it looks like Thatcherism all over again, doesn’t it? I usually got called for a P&O ferry assignment in Dover once or twice yearly and although well…
Surely not another preserved WW2 warship? We’ve got plenty in the U.K. already (yawn!). Maybe, but from hundreds built as sturdy dependable escort craft, the Sackville is the only Flower-class corvette left in the world. She’s in Halifax, Nova Scotia as Canada’s Naval Memorial, a WW2 combat veteran and latterly a museum ship open to the public. And the top of the gangway has a mural of Disney’s sailor-suited Donald Duck, broom in his…
Battered by the pandemic (haven’t we all been?), cruise ship industry owners with no immediate passengers have filed for bankruptcy, while others reduced operating costs by retiring ships early. More than two dozen vessels have been scrapped since and whilst some companies have recycled in an environmentally responsible way, others have not, allowing their ships to be broken up in India enabling high profits, but ignoring…
Ripping apart a neighbourhood just to build yet another neighbourhood, isn’t always a good idea.Plenty of ‘new town’ residents can attest; the idea is basically sound insofar as people graduate into better quality housing, although sad to say, not necessarily better communities.Nonetheless, Belfast in the late sixties was dealt the wrecking ball in an area called ‘Sailortown.’ Just as the name suggests, it was…
‘The coins just kept spinning out onto to the deck’ commented one of the seamen. It was a pub conversation and at first I thought he was boasting about his luck on the fruit machine until I realised that he’d just paid off a vessel chartered by Dover Harbour Board (DHB) to dredge the Goodwin Sands off the Kent coast.I am fairly sure that the year was…
‘Half the scum of England are going into the Merchant Navy to escape National Service’ (1) pronounced Judge Ewen Montagu, a hard-line Law Lord, way back in 1955.An ex-military officer, Montagu’s reactionary opinions seemed to reflect the nation’s mood of the day insofar as conscription was considered to be a duty. Anyway and to the point, arraigned in his court was a merchant seaman…
They both served the nation well, in peace and in war.Problematical is that both ports are tainted with the legacy of slavery.In Bristol’s case this was all too apparent in June 2020 when a Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest removed the statue of Sir Edward Colston, a 17th century merchant and slave trader. The statue was seen as an anachronism in a city increasingly…
Careless – not a word I’d use to describe the professionalism of the Liberty ship crew Richard L Montgomery as she sailed from Philadelphia to the Thames estuary en route to Cherbourg, France. Ultimately the ship was lost, but not before sailing with 6 thousand tonnes of ammunition and keeping close convoy formation amidst an ever-present U-boat threat. She sailed into Loch Ewe, Scotland, thereafter joining a tanker convoy to…
If you’re another old salt you realise there’s nothing unusual about glimpsing the navigation officer taking a noon-day sight.Except that these days checking coordinates is just like pushing a keyboard on your car sat nav. So noon-day sights aren’t such common practice anymore. No waiting for the angle of the sun at midday; the truth is that using a sextant is rarely leisurely and the need…
Outside of the Liverpool/Manchester conurbation few people have heard of Peel Holdings.It owns the Manchester Ship Canal; it built the Trafford Centre and MediaCityUK – now host to multiple television companies – and in Liverpool, is one of the country’s largest port operators. It also has financial interests in diverse activities such as airports (including Liverpool John Lennon), land, transport, retail, hospitality,…
Well, they probably don’t – at least not in the popular sense. Go ask any scouser their opinion of the Beatles and there’ll be a mixed bag of responses ranging from the indifferent (granted, they were ok! ) to the downright hostile (whatever did they do for us? or, they got too big for their boots didn’t they?). And so on.But…
Introduction:A day which is probably more in people’s minds due to resumption of the Premier League football season rather than the commemoration of Britain’s worst maritime tragedy – a disaster which took the lives of an estimated 3000 to 5800 sailors, soldiers, airmen and civilians. Yes, it was a long time ago – but to keep football supporters still interested perhaps there are parallels between the 1939-40…