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On leaving Conway I joined Port Line. My first trip as apprentice was on Port Alma, when I shared a cabin with Jem (J.R.) Martin. Did 10 years with Port Line including two lenghty M.A.N.Z. Line charters (17 month voyage) Stayed with Port Line as 4th. 3rd. and 2nd.mate. After Masters ticket and 10 years looking at butter, Wool, and lamb carcases, I left Port Line looking for a "more interesting" job. Took a position as 3rd Mate with Atlantic Steam Navigation Co. Ltd (who??) , a pioneer ro-ro company running LST's to the continent and Northern Ireland. By the time I joined in 1966 they had 4 purpose built freight Ro Ro ships. In theory I was still looking for "something interesting" like cable laying etc, but I soon found myself in a plush rut, very suitable for married life which I took up in 1967. There was a very attractive rota system of 18 days on and 5 off, which later became 14 days on to 7 off and later still Week on Week off. ASN was a good place to practice for the Thames pilotage, and I had aspirations there until Trinity House closed the application list in 1970. By the time it reopened I was over the age limit!! and I also had three daughters to support.
> ASNCo built more ships, and were taken over by Townsend Thoresens in 1974. but the old ASN section continued virtually independently. By 1975 I was Chief Officer on their new passenger service Felixstowe to Zeebrugge, but was not very happy dealing with the travelling public and their appalling vandalism of the ship. I returned to the less troubled arena of heavy freight Ro Ro in 1979, and was by now relief master/chief officer.
> I was promoted Master in 1982, just in time to take the Baltic Ferry to the Falkland Islands in May 1982, to join the fracas. O.C. Bill Langton was one the second mates on this jolly jaunt. Though we saw several casualties, we were unscathed, and the crew left the ship anchored in Port Stanley and returned to UK in Sept. Next year, February 1983 I returned to the Falklands to bring the Baltic Ferry back to the UK.
> In 1984 P & O took over Townsends, though the Felixstowe and Irish Sea operations did not blend staff with other P & O ferry routes. Nevertheless a slow decline in working conditions began . By 1994 I had had enough and took voluntary redundancy.
> In 1995 I took a job delivering a new tug from the Turkish builders to Kuwaiti owners in the Gulf. The following year I did another delivery job, from Yemen to UK in a 20 metre work boat. Both were very interesting trips of several weeks at "economical speed" (5 or 6 knots), living in close proximity to the roaring diesels and the 3 other crew members. The work paid well but tended to leave you stone deaf at the end of the voyage. After one last delivery trip, which was taking a tug from Felixstowe, to Milford Haven, (ironically it was one which I had sometimes had cause to make use of when manoevring my ferry in in winter gales) I retired to marry off two of my daughters.
> I spend my time enjoying my two grandchildren, attending air shows, foreign travel, and since 1992 I have been sitting on the local magistrates bench, dealing with the sad, the mad, and the bad.
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