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Your 21st Birthday. How and where spent.

38K views 129 replies 102 participants last post by  jmcg 
#1 ·
I well remember mine on 5/3/'61. Was uncertificated 4/0 on ED's mv EBOE off the coast of Ghana. Was given the evening 4~8 off to have a smoke room party. Helen Shapiro was 'top of the pops' singing 'Walking back to happiness'. Walking {just about} up to the bridge at 0400 was not exactly 'happiness'. The traffic was the 'off shore' canoe fishing fleet which necessitated a swift return to sobriety.

This is a 'somewhat abridged' version of the full chain of events but please 'feel free' to 'elaborate' on your memories, which are awaited with interest.
 
#2 ·
Graham I can see by your post you are two years less a day ahead of me but on the day in question I was somewhere in the channel on exercise in rough weather, according to the commissioning book.

20th birthday is far more significant to the RN lads being the day you draw your first tot.
On that day we were along side in Gib and as expected I got exceedingly p****d. Nothing unusual there then.
 
#3 ·
The night before arrival to Jeddah, m.v. Barber Priam. Laid on a card in the bar which included basically anything onboard. I was invited to the crew bar and put their special cocktail away and left them a couple of cases. I had a good night and was presented with a Yanmar exhaust valve mounted on a mahoganny base.
Next day, in Jeddah, it was decided that it would be prudent to keep me out of the way as much as possible and I was put on bunker watch.
Pics in my gallery.
Rgds.
Dave
 
#4 ·
Working till late Friday, arranged to meet everyone at a pub in the dales for Saturday night booze up. While travelling up there, the news was of a rescue, one dead. The guys had spent Friday night and a lot of Saturday getting the dead caver out, a friend of most of us. Saturday night was a massive reaction, things got very chaotic. Altogether a strange weekend.

I had left the sea by then. 18th birthday tied up to the typhoon bouys at Singapore if I remember right.
 
#5 ·
On HMS Fife, Firth of Clyde sea trials, 1965, tied up to Admiralty buoy, no shore leave but......
One of the lads had a bad hand injury and he got ashore every night to get it checked out at the hospital. His good hand managed to carry a fair load of booze to supplement our two cans a day, so we managed a pretty good session.
 
#7 ·
E- life wos hard in my day !
As 3rd Mate on Brocklebanks Malakand in 1947 I had been in my bunk having a sleep after night cargo work in Colombo harbour. Sailed in the evening for Calcutta and did the 8 to 12 watch. No gyros or radar or any suh refinements then. Quadrantal magnetic compass so you took an azimuth every 2 hours or so and when any course alteration. Abot 10 pm took a star bearing and working it out looked in the Nautical Almanac and saw the date - 27th July.
Blimey, I thought, I'm 21 today.
How's that for a jolly time !!
 
#8 ·
Was alongside in Mombasa at the time - 1972 (Jan).

Laid on a tab in the officers' bar but got fed up with watching everybody drink my booze, so went ashore on my own and headed straight for the Sunshine Club on Kilindini Road, where I spent a wonderful evening with all my 'friends' there. Got a little too attached to one of them and decided not to go back to the ship ( BI's "Chinkoa"). As fate turned things out, I was rumbled by my new girlfriend at the last moment and rushed unceremoniously back to the ship, where the gangway was in the act of being raised. Managed to get back onboard, but nobody had even noticed they didn't have a sparkie onboard!

So glad I didn't go through with it, with the rebelliousness and 'finger up' of youth. Spent another 10 years at sea, time and experience which would've been lost to me if it hadn't been for that lovely, understanding lady...

Still got the silver wooden key the engineers made for me.
 
#107 · (Edited)
Coincidence!
On or about my 21st I was also on Roslin Castle in Durban as Junior 4th Eng.
Taken ashore by the electrician and became well and truley plastered. Had to take the 12 4 generator watch and don't know how I did it.
Bless him, the chief Frank Benham, noticed it all, but gave the electrician much more of a hard time over his part in it than he did me.
Unable to drink brandy for many years afterwards.

MWD.
 
#11 ·
Dry Dock in Rotterdam on the Shell tanker Tibia, September '61. Woke up with a raging toothache, a visit to the dentist meant 3 extractions ending up with a very early night, celebrating wasn't on the cards, mind you I did make up for it in the next 15 months bimbling around the Far East, Australia and New Zealand
 
#13 ·
This is to thank ALL contributors, to date, for sharing their 'coming of age' memories with fellow SN members, both young and 'not so'. Normally I would have replied to each posting individually but - although delighted I have - I hadn't expected so many replies in such a short space of time. Hearing about the cir***stances relating to the 'less happy' recollections makes me realize just how lucky a lad I was all those years ago.
 
#14 ·
Birthday memories.

January 1969,second trip Cretic outward bound NZ.My birthday was due to be on the 10th,but the Gods decided we would cross the International Date Line on the 9th,consequently the next day was the 11th so missed my big day.However the lads needless to say had a "few" beers,and the chippy George had made me a Yale type key,about 2ft long, with a story in oil paint depicting the trip down to Kiwi,and showed the Cretic dissected by the dateline on the 10th,which I thought was a great touch.
 
#16 ·
31st.July 1970 Clan Ranald @ Port Louis Mauritius.Free bar with cans of ale at 1/-
cost me £20.My fellow officers bought me an engraved pewter chalice thingy which I still have,sadly with the date and my name spelled incorrectly! the ships chandler presented me with a case of red wine so acid that it etched a line inside my new drinking vessel.Then we all got the ferry ashore from anchorage,our Second Mate Martin Baker hauled me back inboard as I stumbled saving me from a ducking but it left me one with one wet trouser leg.Returning to the ship I discovered the Chief Engineer`Must Have It`Nicholls had left a young lady called Rosie in my cabin,all in all a memorable day,evening and night.
 
#17 ·
21st

On the Westbury: Fremantle to Liverpool. The day the Americans landed on the moon July 1969. Going around South Africa, could see the lights of Capetown. Most of the crew in my cabin with cases of tennants. Tried to do my 12-4 watch on the wing of the bridge. The Old
man had me relieved and logged and fined me the next day.

On reflection it was worth paying the fines, because the memories
of that night shipmates (no females) singing and dancing will stay in my mind forever.

Tommy
 
#18 ·
In Tilbury on the City of Khartoum,ten bob in my pocket and having to do 8 to 12 gangway fortunately my birthday was saved by another Q.M.doing my watch and a lovely lady took pity on me and we were of up to London for a wonderfull night.I still had the ten bob in my pocket the next day.She was older than me and may not be around today but I will always remember that 21st and thank her for saving my birthday.
 
#22 ·
Just coming to the end of my apprenticeship in Cammell Lairds. A gang of us hired a room in the Pier Hotel in New Brighton and installed a firkin of beer. Sandwiches etc. all laid on.
The session went quite well except for when we were going home, some silly b****r walked down the slipway from the promenade toward the beach. The only problem was that the beach was about 4ft below the tide and the rest of us silly b****rs went in to rescue him.
It's a wonder that the bus going home didn't capsize with the free surface effect on the top deck!

Derek
 
#23 ·
1974 July standing bye the BP Forties platform north Sea. 1st trip junior R/O
Salvage Tug Euroman Skipper was neither Jack Linford or Cyril Hyam. They made
me a key from gasket material (had it for years) and all hands signed it, We only had about 2 cases of beer and one bottle of Barcardi, But they got me drunk.
most of the crew was from Hull. Really good time, nice memory, they were really good to me first trip sparkie.

all the best
Hughesy
 
#25 ·
My 21st Birthday was spent in Port Huron, Michigan as 3rd.Mate on "MANCHESTER FAME" Up the road to the bar in the local bowling alley called the Bomb Shelter - free drinks for me all night.
The previous day we had been in Toledo - the bars there refused to serve me when I produced my ID Card - one day before my 21st.

Roger Harrison
 
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