How many young men and women from our generation answered the call of the sea; I suppose many followed their father, brother or uncles into the profession but for the majority it was a job with the possibility of adventure and they answered the call, for certain thousands packed their grips and went to sea.

After an initial introduction via a sea training school it was experience learnt on the job from our peers; we practiced skills that had been developed over hundreds of years and refined during the years of sail, methods that had been proved and improved during that time.
After three years and having passed a certificate of competency we were graded as Able Seamen capable of all the seamanship skills required of a seaman and we sailed the ships.
There was adventure but then, for one reason or another, we swallowed the anchor and found work ashore, usually it was to marry and help raise a family.

We took up new professions, new jobs and we progressed, many attaining the pinnacle of their new endeavour and many even started and ran their own very successful business, they scaled the heights of success yet they never forgot the time they ploughed the oceans of the world as Merchant Seamen.

It really is the magic of the sea that brought us to The Sailors’ Home, a place where we mix with like minded people, others who have lived the tranquillity of the sea, witnessed the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets as well as the savagery and rage of an angry sea.

Why did we remain faithful to these memories was it the wanderlust nature of the job, the friends we made amongst our shipmates or simply the arbitrary nature of each new voyage.
What was your life like after the sea and why are the memories of your time a sea so profound?

Tony I did the full wack and finished in the P.O. I think it was the wanderlust and the making of good friends, I still knock around with some of my old shipmates and I have made a lot new ones on the Sailors Home.

Tony,
As an ex-ED man I almost take exception to your d....d Palm Line funnel. Almost, but not quite!

I stayed at sea until, in my view, the chances of making a good career in the UK weren't good. Companies were merging or diversifying, and the number of new ships being built decreased. Family raising came later.

Oddly enough, when I came ashore it was to do something completely different, as Monty Python used to say. I didn't look back with much nostalgia, not then anyway, and went on to forge a career in what became known as IT - computers and all that stuff. Eventually, I satisfied my wanderlust by working for an oilfield services company, and travelled all over the world as well as living and working abroad, in Europe, Middle East, Asia and USA for many years. I retired last year and still live where I last worked, near Houston, Texas. My wife and I (she's an ex-ED girl too - used to work in India Buildings) have lived here longer than anywhere else, and have more friends here than anywhere, so why not?

Now I look back on my time at sea as part of a varied life, and I don't know that I'd change too much of it. Maybe I could leave out cleaning bilges in Apapa?

Yeah Ernie the mateship did it for me, I used to knock around with old ship mates and one of them married one of my sisters. Jumping ship in OZ changed all that, once I had my ticket I was mixing with a different crowd and going to sea was never the same, for starters I was working five weeks on and five weeks off to the point where many crew changes were done by helicopter.
The only shipmate from the old shipping days is living a lie, having a pathological problem, and I can't hack that and that's sad.

I think that I know the man you refer to,Tony, and to tell the truth I used to get a good laugh out
of his yarns. We are not some religious order, sworn never to tell a fib, a lie or a bulls..t story.
What fun would that be? So what if his stories were outrageously untrue? Was anybody ever insulted,
humiliated or simply annoyed by it?

He was/is a walking compendium of matters concerning ships and shipping companies and always
interested in looking things up in his store of such knowledge. I thought was an asset in-so-far
as the contribution he made to the site, on maritime, nautical and shipboard stuff.

I miss his postings.