This is a bit of a long shot but does anyone out there in Royal Mail land know, or know of, someone whose memory stretches back to the 1920s?
If so then I'm looking for information about my maternal grandfather Harry Smedmore Haysom who according to family gossip was a sometime steward and/or chief steward on the Andes of that era and died at sea somewhere off Rio on 6 October 1927, aged 47. I believe he was buried at sea. By all accounts he was an addicted card player and the gambling that went with it, loved a drink and smoked like a chimney!
I was told by my mother that in those days Royal Mail would pay for families of senior sea staff (hence the chief steward tag) to go up to Tilbury and see their husbands before they sailed again - the family was from Hampshire.
Any help gratefully received thanks. Perhaps I should have gone to sea with Royal Mail instead of Ben and Bank lines!
If so then I'm looking for information about my maternal grandfather Harry Smedmore Haysom who according to family gossip was a sometime steward and/or chief steward on the Andes of that era and died at sea somewhere off Rio on 6 October 1927, aged 47. I believe he was buried at sea. By all accounts he was an addicted card player and the gambling that went with it, loved a drink and smoked like a chimney!
I was told by my mother that in those days Royal Mail would pay for families of senior sea staff (hence the chief steward tag) to go up to Tilbury and see their husbands before they sailed again - the family was from Hampshire.
Any help gratefully received thanks. Perhaps I should have gone to sea with Royal Mail instead of Ben and Bank lines!