Frank Walker – Part One
A MARINERS` PARK RESIDENT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT WAS A EUROPEAN CONFLICT DEVELOPING INTO A WORLD WAR!! A talk by Captain Peter Thomson
Stories
CHANNEL CROSSINGS: NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE
Landed in Dover, but some aren’t so lucky.Yep, it was me. I was the one who discovered an illegal migrant hiding on the car deck at five am whilst just 40 minutes from Dover. It’s not such a rare occurrence as expected, but contrary to standing orders which states we should immediately call a security officer – security? – that’s a joke…
INSIDE IRAN
Surely NOT again! Would be a first thought for Iranians of a certain age.Those, for example, who lived through the previous civil unrest of forty years ago. For then it was protests against the secular leadership of the Shah Reza Pahlavi which crushed his leadership and brought in the religious theocracy of the Islamic clerics.The Shah eventually fled Iran, but not…
Mysteries & Memories
This talk is to the memory of 2 young men, Robert Prescot & Maxwell Biggam who died at sea in what could be described as incompletely explained circumstances aboard the Liverpool Bridge.
Merchant Navy Day 22
Footage from today’s service at the Pier Head.
BAJA CALIFORNIA SUR
It was a special pleasure to be on land again.The place was the Greyhound bus station in downtown Los Angeles and I was going to Tijuana, Mexico – eventually further to the state of Baja California Sur.I’d just paid off a ship in Long Beach and rather than immediately return to the UK, I asked the ship’s agent to rearrange the flight home.You could…
NICARAGUA – SOME PRESIDENTS ARE MORE EQUAL.
At 19 years old you knew it all. Or so you thought after a world-wide trip on a container ship. You saw oil sheikh kingdoms sitting on their wealth.On the other hand, you saw the industriousness of Japan and it’s famed work ethic.You learned that California isn’t just Hollywood mansions; there were homeless people and food stamps too.It was all new. But…
Johnny Walker Memorial – Liverpool 2022
P&O FERRIES DOVER: AN AGENCY EMPLOYEE’S STORY.
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…
CITIZEN SAILORS: HMCS SACKVILLE.
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…
Armistice Day 2021
Footage from the Pier Head today.
SHIP’S GRAVEYARD: ALANG, INDIA
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…