I have been scanning in photographs of the ships I sailed in during my time as a Radio Officer in the Merchant Navy, so I thought I would share them with you.
From top to bottom they are 16,000 ton d.w. Tanker "Border Fusilier" this is a poor photo blagged from the internet and doesn't bear enlarging. I spent only approx three months on the Fusilier, Border Tankers was a subsidiary company of B.P. and operated mainly small coastal tankers. I travelled from Scandinavia to the Med. and back.
Next is a 9,500 gt general cargo ship mv "Floristan". she was owned by Strick and Ellerman and was interesting in having a 180 ton derrick built amidships. This was my second ship, I should have done three months on this one, travelling to the gulf and back but she was chartered by an American company and we were sent off on a varied trip which saw us arriving in Chittagong the day marshall law was declared, Ayub Khan gave up the ghost, and East Pakistan became Bangladesh. After that we went to mombasa, loaded a deck cargo of zoo animals bound for New York. I was on Floristan for eight months and spent my 21st birthday aboard. a small coincidental interesting point is that my Mother was called Florence and my Father was called Stanley - my 2nd ship was called Floristan!!!!!
The last one in this group is the mv "Laganbank" one of a large group of ships owned by the Bank Line (actually Andrew Weir and Co) She was built as a "Copra" ship. i.e. she was designed to carry coconut produce from the south sea islands. My 6 or 7 months on Laganbank were wonderful. We carried general cargo to the mexican gulf ports of USA, sailed through Panama canal and crossed the pacific, taking on fuel in Fiji. We docked in Brisbane on Christmas eve 1969. After a week or more of festivities we then circumnavigated Aussie and came home via various islands of the South Pacific, calling in at the Solomon Islands, Fiji (again), Tonga, and Samoa. It was an amazing trip, there are too many stories to recount here, one day I will sit down and write some of them down for posterity
