[TonyAllen]

Got to agree with that John. Undervalued? I got £3/6/8 per week for working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, plus loads of verbal abuse, and the occasional smack round the earhole.(Sad)

Pat. my wage first trip was £7,5shillings per month as Galley boy .up at 6 every morning.to get the ovens and hot plates ready and a large kettle of tea .for whoever was about .one hour off in the afternoon then finish with a wash down after after dinner on my own.about 7.0
that wa the Elpenor April 1955. cheers

 

[Stephen J. Card]

[

Pat. my wage first trip was £7,5shillings per month as Galley boy .up at 6 every morning.to get the ovens and hot plates ready and a large kettle of tea .for whoever was about .one hour off in the afternoon then finish with a wash down after after dinner on my own.about 7.0
that wa the Elpenor April 1955. cheers

£7.25 at 1955. The British pound experienced an average inflation rate of 5.31% per year between 1955 and 2017. £7.25 in the year 1955 is worth £179.21 in 2017.

Not much back then and not very much today either! Still, in 1955 you got BOT rations so was not that bad. You definitely could not get far if you were trying to survive ashore.

Stephen

 

[Pat Kennedy]

Got to agree with that John. Undervalued? I got £3/6/8 per week for working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, plus loads of verbal abuse, and the occasional smack round the earhole.(Sad)

Pat. my wage first trip was £7,5shillings per month as Galley boy .up at 6 every morning.to get the ovens and hot plates ready and a large kettle of tea .for whoever was about .one hour off in the afternoon then finish with a wash down after after dinner on my own.about 7.0
that wa the Elpenor April 1955. cheers

Tony,
On my first ship, the Achilles, I had a good mate from Wallasey, who was first trip pantry boy. We hardly saw each other the whole voyage, both of us too exhausted to do much more than flake out at the end of the working day.
The galley boy had done two voyages, so did not condescend to speak to either of us(Jester)

 

[Stephen J. Card]

Back in the 1930s the pantry boy came to the bridge with tea for the Second Mate. He left the cup and then paused in the chartroom to look at the chart. The Second Mate told him to get his backside down to the galley, the chartroom was no business him. On his next ship he signed on board as JOS or OS. It didn't take much time to get his tickets and was Master with Denholm. I have read a bit more of his story. Good read. I think during in the Second War he was superintendent by then.

Stephen

 

[LouisB]

I have always held the belief that the most undervalued and underrated person on board any British ship was the Bosun. He always seemed to me the one man one could rely on to make things happen. Never quite understood the importance of Carpenter and why he appeared above the Bosun on the crew list. Tradesman argument does not wash. Perhaps this new rating of CPO which which is assumed by the Bosun is someway towards the mans recognition.

@IL
Agree. Many years after I left the RFA and UASC I kicked around plenty of agencies and eventually found a company with a liner run out to S. Africa. I only stayed for one round trip for reasons various. The one person on the vessel who I found reliable and had an overall view of what the 'score' was on that ship was the Bosun. Knew his job backwards and literally as hard as nails but also highly intelligent in many subjects.

LouisB (Scribe)

 

[Robert Hilton]

On ships I sailed on it was called the duty mess.

Likewise in the South American Saint Line in the 50's. In those days there was such a creature (now probably extinct) as a sixth engineer. One was having lunch in the duty mess when one of the innumerable Wong clan entered and asked, "You want blick?"
The sixer was puzzled and asked, "What's blick?"
Wong replied, "You low, blick, b-r-e-a-d."

 

[raybnz]

I've read on this site that engineers were officers as far back as the 19th century. Did they have access to the Saloon for meals from that time onward? I've a memory that they ate in the Engineers Mess until after WW2, when they were allowed in with the mates. How true?
ta, Norman

When I sailed as a engineer on SS&As Corinthic she was 1st class passenger. We had a me Bloody good tucker.
s room adjacent to the Galley. Our menu was the same as the passengers.

 

[spongebob]

NZ shipping's Rangitane had dining arrangements where the deck officers, Sparkies , four senior engineers plus the chief freezer and chief electrician were allocated tables in the passengers dining room while the junior engineers and electricians messed in their own dining room.

Bob

 

[david freeman]

one of the self respecting and attitudes of self disapline on a tanker was engineers getting changed and eating-dinning in the officers saloon enabled the junior and senior officers of all disaplines, was to convervse and hear, and join in when invited to the discussions of the day, and it help me understand ships business both in port and at sea. It was a great leveller? for all??

 

[k.atkinson]

As a cadet/apprentice with indentures we came across some wet grass and over I went sliding towards the master on my back cutlery in hand. He instructed me to return to my table. When working, whites were a pain to keep clean as were threading the shoulder boards. As a watch-keeping third I would get up for breakfast until sitting opposite the second mate while he cut away the egg white, balanced the yolk on his fork while it wobbled its way intact to his mouth and inside. Mummy had taught me different table manners. One ship had two large circular tables with "lazy susans" (rotating centres). The person on the right would distract while the one on the left placed the distracted's plate on the centre and rotate it away. Such is the childishness of young gentlemen and officers. Jebsens supplied us with two sets of grays in poly/cotton which washed and dried in a couple of hours and modern velcro eppaulettes which were no obstacle to eating in the saloon while on daywork which made us feel more civilised unless unavoidably detained.

 

[Bankman]

I've read on this site that engineers were officers as far back as the 19th century. Did they have access to the Saloon for meals from that time onward? I've a memory that they ate in the Engineers Mess until after WW2, when they were allowed in with the mates. How true?
ta, Norman

Where did yous read this from la.

 

[Bankman]

one of the self respecting and attitudes of self disapline on a tanker was engineers getting changed and eating-dinning in the officers saloon enabled the junior and senior officers of all disaplines, was to convervse and hear, and join in when invited to the discussions of the day, and it help me understand ships business both in port and at sea. It was a great leveller? for all??

I wasn't at sea immediately after WWII but, certainly, in 1958 when I first went off to sea the engineers were certainly considered to be officers, and they ate in the saloon. In there there was the question of rank: the master, chief engineer, chief officer, and senior second engineer sat at one table while the riff-raff ate wherever there was a space, generally a mix of deck and engineer officers who would fight furiously over who could steer his cockroach from the cereal packet over the end of the table first!

There was also the engineers "dirty mess" where grabbing a quick meal while dressed in an oily boiler suit was permissible as long as it was necessitated by engine room commitments. It was a privilege often abused, and masters and chief engineers would soon put a stop to frivolous abuses. Of course, the chief and senior second engineers were expected to never, ever, eat in the dirty mess since neither kept watches or worked field days.

Cockroachs can found in any space onboard ship in the presence of senior officers or riff raff they don't discriminate.

 

[JClaude60]

When I joined the ( belgian ) merchant navy as a junior engineer in 1963 , everything on board was inherited from UK , since they moved to UK during the war . We ate porridge, kippers , eggs, bacon and haddock for breakfast There was a separate saloon for the captain, chief engineer and chief mate ; a saloon for officers with three tables : deck, engineers and the bulk of Junior engineers, 5th engineer, deck cadets.
There was no friendship between deck and engineers .
It was different in other companies ,
Later, we didn t run watches anymore , all engineers were daymen, with saturday afternoon off and I ventured on deck as an engineer to take lessons of how to take a position .