One of my first memories is being seated on dad’s bike cross-bar seeing the ore boats moving on the tide at Workington, an iron and steel town of Cumberland, NW England; ‘Liberty ‘ships, ‘Forts’, ‘Parks’ and ‘Oceans’, including those in Clan Line and Brocklebank liveries, and vintage Greek and Panamanian tramps.
A few years on, my best mate’s father rather conveniently managed ‘WH Smith’, the biggest newsagents in town, and would lock us boys in the shop in the evening while he went to the pub next door. So I not only read subscription copies of ‘Sea Breezes’ before their rightful owners but also ‘The Motor Ship’, ‘Lloyds List’ and ‘Journal of Commerce’ before they reached the town’s shipping agents and the Workington Iron and Steel Co, a forerunner of ‘British Steel’.
I recall a prediction from my Junior school teacher who knew me to be ship mad: “Straughton – you’re on the way to becoming chief engineer on a raft!” Thanks Mr McDonald! And I was rejected by the Merchant Navy (vision had to be 20/20 then - too much reading ‘Sea Breezes’ under the bed covers!) . However I did become the first ‘commodore’ of the school’s new sailing club fleet – ie one boat.
I didn’t exactly sparkle at Aberdeen University because the port was far too interesting being in transition from general cargo and fishing to Oil, Oil, Oil! But I did begin writing for ‘Sea Breezes’, putting into use those hours of expropriating shipping magazines and witnessing shipping movements instead of studying. I would eventually shun local government employment for ‘British Waterways’ becoming head of that Board’s leisure operations in the North of England when there was still considerable interface with canal freight activity. Connecting the sea to ‘inland’ with the incredible facility to take boats the whole way across the country – these things excite me still.
Government then was still spending much taxpayer’s money to eradicate canals. With some of my colleagues we fought this pathetically narrow, barren, dismal attitude to UK history and economic potential and we helped win a reprieve for some waterways long enough for their unrivalled value for public good to be recognised. I was to move back to my native Cumbria to a senior Tourist Board post and now manage a historic outdoor centre in the Lake District.
My ‘Sea Breezes’ writing is a family affair. Wife Lesley is a maritime aesthete; ‘a proper ship should have a sharp and a blunt end, two masts and at least one funnel preferably in the middle’; daughter Jane-Eve is a gifted linguist who translates Norwegian texts and Russian ship names; other daughter Ellie is a Phd Historian so comes in useful as ‘Scan Monkey’, transforming both my own and our reader’s shipping prints to digital form for sending on to the Sea Breezes office..
I must end by sending my grateful belated thanks to WH Smith, Newsagents, for their albeit unconscious forbearance.
AS GREATER ‘EFFICIENCY NEEDS FEWER PEOPLE’
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ON THE afternoon of Aug 30, a fishing vessel reported to the Coastguard that she had lost power near Peterhead,
THE Atlantic Container Line (ACL) won a contract from Boeing Defence UK to transport seven Chinook helicopters across the Atlantic
THE NEW Invergordon Shannon class lifeboat which enters service next spring will feature the names of thousands of people in
The Grand Bahama Shipyard (GBS) officially resumed operations and welcomed back its first commercial vessel following Hurricane Dorian.
THE EXTENSION of the barge service at the port of Morrow, in Oregon, is one of only three projects on
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THE US Coast Guard has launched an investigation into the sinking of three vessels in the Illinois River near Hardin,
WORK has started on the expansion of Seattle’s Terminal 5 so it can handle container ships of up to 18,000
THE JAPANESE shipbuilder Japan Marine United has delivered what it described as “a next-generation energy-saving bulk carrier” to Nissen Kaiun,
THE Japanese shipping line, Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (K Line), have taken delivery of the coal carrier Corona Citrus, 88,000dwt, built
A new search has been demanded to recover the second Voyage Data Recorder (VDR) from the wreck of the South
THE SWISS-based Mediterranean Shipping Co (MSC) has taken delivery of one of the world’s largest container ships, the MSC Gulsun,
THE Singapore-based container shipping company Ocean Network Express (ONE) has taken delivery of the 14,000 teu capacity ONE Cygnus, 138,611dwt,
American News The expansion of the US Navy’s amphibious capability continues with the announcement that General Dynamics NASSCO has received
BRITISH News THE FOURTH and last of the new Tide class tankers, RFA Tideforce, was offi cially accepted into service
US News USS CINCINNATI is the latest member of the expanding littoral combat ship fl eet to be delivered to
indian News
The troubled Scorpene class submarine program hit another snag in June.
US News
The US Navy has unveiled its plans for the purchase of a new frigate known as FFG(X).
PROPOSED FERRY EXCHANGE ‘AND A TALE OF TWO STEAMERS...’
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