On some of the ben boats we carried cadets who were offered positions to be trained up and become qualified to then go back ashore to ther native country and assist the development of their countries government marine depts.
On the ben valla we had a first trip cadet join in Hong kong his name was Ian Godber (nick name---ler) . His father was Chief of police in HK.
Ian had led a great life in HK nightclubing it best of clothes and played a guitar in a local night club band (group). greasing falls and winch wires and lifting 10ton blocks on to your shoulder to carry up the deck was sore on delicate struming fingers.
The other difference Ian had to the other cadets was he had fairly long hair and i mean the the length that he had to keep running his fingers thru it to put it sweepit back on his head .
Now this long black hair needed attention with no weekly visit to Toni's or Vidal sasoon in HK ,no brylcream or vosine he needed to do something .
Homeward bound we introduced him to the hot oil treatment which has to be applied each day and only washed once a week.
This was the thrice daily visit down the hatch climb over the crates of plywood, crates of tamarins thru a passage in the stacks of cartons of HK towels for BHS then all the cartons of Woolworths crap to the tank tops .
Here we carefully stored and cared for the at the correct tempreature the hair oil. (coconut oil ) pulling up the rope with four brass encased thermometers from the depths of the tank thru the ulage sounding hole he wiped his hands on his hair every time . Then he would log the temps in the deep tnak log book . After this he would make his way to the bridge and transfer the temps into the daily brigde log, the old man was Donald Cowie, he caught me three days later on the main deck and asked if i knew what he was doing and i said yes ,we had told him itwas the best thing for his hair in the tropics ,where upon Donald replied I wished to ---- you had told him to get his hair cut instead of making it look pretty. He said if i tell him i will get it in the neck from Capt Robb because he seems to be telling his folks everything that is going on.I replied we have'nt done that many ports for mail to get back to HK . Donald replied his old man has put money on board for him he has five times what you guys have a month and he is sending telegrams home .Donald then said up here for thinking down there for dancing why do you think he was up the road every night in Kobe and every other Japanese port.
Sure enough Ian was ahead of us in some things but plenty short in others ,we did tell him to see the No; 2 painter for a hair cut before arrival in the UK. Ian did not do that but when he found out that the flies in Aden and suez liked his hair he needed OMO and swarfega to get it clean of the coconut oil.
Ian was a good lad and I don't what happened to him if he stayed on with Ben or went back to HK and playing his guitar, If anyone knows what happened to please post it or drop me a line.
Rgds Ian.
On the ben valla we had a first trip cadet join in Hong kong his name was Ian Godber (nick name---ler) . His father was Chief of police in HK.
Ian had led a great life in HK nightclubing it best of clothes and played a guitar in a local night club band (group). greasing falls and winch wires and lifting 10ton blocks on to your shoulder to carry up the deck was sore on delicate struming fingers.
The other difference Ian had to the other cadets was he had fairly long hair and i mean the the length that he had to keep running his fingers thru it to put it sweepit back on his head .
Now this long black hair needed attention with no weekly visit to Toni's or Vidal sasoon in HK ,no brylcream or vosine he needed to do something .
Homeward bound we introduced him to the hot oil treatment which has to be applied each day and only washed once a week.
This was the thrice daily visit down the hatch climb over the crates of plywood, crates of tamarins thru a passage in the stacks of cartons of HK towels for BHS then all the cartons of Woolworths crap to the tank tops .
Here we carefully stored and cared for the at the correct tempreature the hair oil. (coconut oil ) pulling up the rope with four brass encased thermometers from the depths of the tank thru the ulage sounding hole he wiped his hands on his hair every time . Then he would log the temps in the deep tnak log book . After this he would make his way to the bridge and transfer the temps into the daily brigde log, the old man was Donald Cowie, he caught me three days later on the main deck and asked if i knew what he was doing and i said yes ,we had told him itwas the best thing for his hair in the tropics ,where upon Donald replied I wished to ---- you had told him to get his hair cut instead of making it look pretty. He said if i tell him i will get it in the neck from Capt Robb because he seems to be telling his folks everything that is going on.I replied we have'nt done that many ports for mail to get back to HK . Donald replied his old man has put money on board for him he has five times what you guys have a month and he is sending telegrams home .Donald then said up here for thinking down there for dancing why do you think he was up the road every night in Kobe and every other Japanese port.
Sure enough Ian was ahead of us in some things but plenty short in others ,we did tell him to see the No; 2 painter for a hair cut before arrival in the UK. Ian did not do that but when he found out that the flies in Aden and suez liked his hair he needed OMO and swarfega to get it clean of the coconut oil.
Ian was a good lad and I don't what happened to him if he stayed on with Ben or went back to HK and playing his guitar, If anyone knows what happened to please post it or drop me a line.
Rgds Ian.
