Good morning Nick

I have just been enjoying you excellent website covering a huge amount of
P & O history. I really commend you for a fine effort at recording and promoting P & O history, a subject dear to my heart too.

We obviously both share a huge pride in having served this wonderful company and now enjoy looking back with nostalgia and affection on our days with P & O.

I recall your name but I don’t think we never met. I served the company from 1948 to 1963, 4th officer to Chief Officer, but I can claim just two weeks as Staff Captain and about the same amount of time in command in the company. (Ex-Pangbourne I served my time from 1946 – 1948 in Port Line, joining P & O with my 2nd Mate’s Certificate)

My most senior roles were very brief; the former was when I was Chief Officer of Himalaya about 1960 and I spent one cruise as Staff Captain, while my brief command was earlier, in Empire Fowey. I was Chief Officer when we landed Captain Perry sick in Hong Kong on arrival. I signed the register as master until I was relieved not long afterwards in Singapore where Captain Hill was flown out to take over. So now you know my claims to fame!

Having met my wife-to-be, a New Zealand passenger, while Chief Officer of Iberia in 1960 I resigned in 1963 to settle in NZ where I managed to build my own marine survey business, becoming Lloyds Agent and a Salvage Association consultant surveyor in due course.

I am now long retired but I research and write for a hobby. So we have a common interest.

I was really impressed with your website and thoroughly enjoyed about three-quarters of an hour on it. I still have some to read but I thought I would make contact with you now.

One of my special interest at the moment is concerned with apprentices and cadets. I am researching information on them with the intention of writing an article on the subject. I have managed to get a number of indentures from fellow mariners who ‘served their time’ and will shortly analyse them. However, my article will be concerned also with some of the historical background to sea apprenticeships and also a mention of cadets (technically different only regarding their contract) then and now.

A question with which you may be able to assist me please. Do you happen to know if any company other than Blue Funnel called apprentices midshipmen? I know Elder Dempster did so a long time ago and again, I think, after the Blue Funnel takeover. Can you by any chance confirm the latter?

I see you have spent time researching for your fellowship. Congratulations. Presumably quite a lot on the website is also your addition but mostly from your own experience in the company.

I see it appears we shared a few common ships. Mine were, Paringa, Shillong, Strathmore, Perim, Surat, Empire Fowey, Iberia and Himalaya with Dock Staff in Ranchi, Mooltan, Chusan and a number of cargo ships.


I have one or two comments from the website for you. They are;

1.         Photo of a Chief Officer in Strathnaver 1951 — I just wonder at the correctness of the date as I think from memory (?) 1949 was the date of the revised P & O Regulations which placed the rank markings on both shoulders.

2.         Probably quite correct but I ask myself about the statement that lascars volunteered to serve in WW2. I was unaware that they actually volunteered. Who did? Every man individually? Collectively? If so how?

3.         I have often quoted the story about the lascar who is reputed to have said, ‘Sahib, me P & O’, when asked his nationality after the partition of India.
I did not realize it was attributed to Sir William Curry.

4. It is not quite correct to say all officers’ servants were Goanese. As Chief Officer I invariably had a lascar ‘boy’ who I usually shared with the First Officer. Others did have Goanese. (I think maybe the C/E had an agwallah but am uncertain of this.)

Re Item 1 I can check the date as I have still some info on P & O Regs. I wrote a lengthy article in ‘About Ourselves’ in the early 1960 about the history of the P & O uniform. The subject of MN uniforms still interests me a lot.

On the subject of writing and research I have written 3 books on nautical matters. One is on the History of the NZ Coastguard, another published in London, is a text-book on Surveying Marine Damage, and the Third All Hands and the Cook — The Customs and Language of the British Merchant Seaman 1875 – 1975  is the only one likely to interest you. (It has brought back many happy memories to many mariners.)

So Nick, that’s about it for now. I shall be interested to hear about your P & O career and about it after you left the company too. I hope you find some interest in our common links and I hope we may be able to interest one another further in our common interests.

With best wishes.

Barry Thompson