Anyone Interested in Ships

[jjb1970]

10 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

 

It wasn't a bad place to grow up, but has changed massively over the last 20 years.  Of course being from Shields, they sent me to Riversdale to learn scouse when I was a Cadet!

 

P&OCL told me I'd be sent to Warsash in line with their policy of sending cadets as far from home as possible to get them used to being away from home, but I didn't complain when I got my joining letter for Shields (I lived in Carlisle). I used to go home at weekends, an easy trip on the train and I never suffered any home sickness when I went to sea. I think I dodged a bullet in avoiding Warsash, it always sounded too serious for me.

[jjb1970]

I haven't been back to Shields since doing my chiefs in the late 90's or so. It was a very different atmosphere when I went back to do seconds and chiefs, not because of the town itself but having been there as a cadet with a raucous bunch of other teenagers away from home for the first time it was a completely different experience.

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

I haven't been back to Shields since doing my chiefs in the late 90's or so. It was a very different atmosphere when I went back to do seconds and chiefs, not because of the town itself but having been there as a cadet with a raucous bunch of other teenagers away from home for the first time it was a completely different experience.

The College seemed to change a lot between my doing Seconds (back end of 1985) and Chiefs (mid-1989) too, and I don't think it was anything to do with my being older. The demograph was completely different.

 

Mark

[Simon Lee]

3 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

South Shields is great!! I remember those halcyon days as a cadet, going out in the middle of winter oggling the talent out on the town dressed for a day on a tropical beach, happy days!🤣

My brother thought the same. He started there in 1968 with Ellermans.

I think too much of the local distractions were part of the reasons Ellermans decided he wasnt really officer material  despite him qualifying, as the saying goes he was invited to "persue other interests"

[Bon Accord]

5 hours ago, MarkC said:

The College seemed to change a lot between my doing Seconds (back end of 1985) and Chiefs (mid-1989) too, and I don't think it was anything to do with my being older. The demograph was completely different.

 

Mark

 

I was there for a course in 2015 having last been there about 15 years previous.

To say I was horrified to find the MarTech bar was now a gym is something of an understatement, that and there was a Costa Coffee in the actual college building. I suppose the two fearsome old ladies who the ran the Martech with a rod of iron are long gone.

No longer are there cadets or lecturers to be seen in the Westoe or County either for the usual lunchtime pints.

 

Of course all the lecturers I knew are long retired or indeed long dead, but I doubt their replacements are anything like them character wise; some of them were absolutely certifiable and most of the rest just nuts.

All followed the same mould of being proper local men who'd served their time with every one of them an ex Master deepsea with the college principally being a source of beer tokens or to keep them out of the way of the wife.

One lovely fellow (ex BP) who used to teach us chartwork and magnetic compass had made a lot of money as Master in foreign flag tankers running oil into SA during the embargo, he then became a North Sea Pilot and was very amenable to early knocks, smoking breaks and a pint or two with us before he caught the ferry home to North Shields.

Some of the ex BI and Blue Star blokes were something else too, "shot away" as we'd say, but in the nicest possible way. One of them told us all to take up smoking as it meant more fag breaks, plus making a rolly or filling your pipe was apparently a good way to play for time if something really bad was happening and you had to make a decision whilst at the same time appearing outwardly calm.

The Engineering and Radio types were very similar of course - I remember doing my engineering module and being ushered into the "Doxford Shop" to see that magical beast shaking the building to bits in between odd and usually very loud bangs. Then into the "BP shop" to see an array of museum pieces donated by my former employer like steam steering gear etc.

When I did my GMDSS ticket I also did that in Shields, and the ex R/Os taking the course made no attempt to conceal their bitterness and distaste for the new order. We weren't took keen on it either to be fair. One bloke kept waxing lyrical about the Pendennis Castle as he'd been on the thing forever and took it as a personal affront when she was withdrawn from service and sold by UCL, this was in between regularly b*llocking us for getting our Q codes and various other radio procedure wrong.

The things you remember?!

 

Regarding Warsash, I did my mates ticket down there - not through choice - and it was a real eye opener, especially after having heard all the stories. You could well see why Warsash was ideal for (and usually well filled by) passie boat and RFA types, whilst the rest of us mere mortals were much better off in places like Shields!

[MarkC]

38 minutes ago, Bon Accord said:

 

I was there for a course in 2015 having last been there about 15 years previous.

To say I was horrified to find the MarTech bar was now a gym is something of an understatement, that and there was a Costa Coffee in the actual college building. I suppose the two fearsome old ladies who the ran the Martech with a rod of iron are long gone.

No longer are there cadets or lecturers to be seen in the Westoe or County either for the usual lunchtime pints.

 

Of course all the lecturers I knew are long retired or indeed long dead, but I doubt their replacements are anything like them character wise; some of them were absolutely certifiable and most of the rest just nuts.

All followed the same mould of being proper local men who'd served their time with every one of them an ex Master deepsea with the college principally being a source of beer tokens or to keep them out of the way of the wife.

One lovely fellow (ex BP) who used to teach us chartwork and magnetic compass had made a lot of money as Master in foreign flag tankers running oil into SA during the embargo, he then became a North Sea Pilot and was very amenable to early knocks, smoking breaks and a pint or two with us before he caught the ferry home to North Shields.

Some of the ex BI and Blue Star blokes were something else too, "shot away" as we'd say, but in the nicest possible way. One of them told us all to take up smoking as it meant more fag breaks, plus making a rolly or filling your pipe was apparently a good way to play for time if something really bad was happening and you had to make a decision whilst at the same time appearing outwardly calm.

The Engineering and Radio types were very similar of course - I remember doing my engineering module and being ushered into the "Doxford Shop" to see that magical beast shaking the building to bits in between odd and usually very loud bangs. Then into the "BP shop" to see an array of museum pieces donated by my former employer like steam steering gear etc.

When I did my GMDSS ticket I also did that in Shields, and the ex R/Os taking the course made no attempt to conceal their bitterness and distaste for the new order. We weren't took keen on it either to be fair. One bloke kept waxing lyrical about the Pendennis Castle as he'd been on the thing forever and took it as a personal affront when she was withdrawn from service and sold by UCL, this was in between regularly b*llocking us for getting our Q codes and various other radio procedure wrong.

The things you remember?!

 

Regarding Warsash, I did my mates ticket down there - not through choice - and it was a real eye opener, especially after having heard all the stories. You could well see why Warsash was ideal for (and usually well filled by) passie boat and RFA types, whilst the rest of us mere mortals were much better off in places like Shields!

Ah, the dear old MarTec - you'll be thinking of Beattie and Joan, who took no carp from anyone! Spent many happy hours in there over the years, including, whilst I was doing Chiefs, getting caught by the Rugby Club and presented with a Yard of Ale to sup... Did I complete it? Damn right I did 😁

 

The Doxford engine has now gone - it was going to be scrapped, but thankfully a new home was found for it - not in the area though, IIRC.

 

The workshops were run with an iron fist by messrs Elsom and Sowerby, who seemed to vie with each other as to how many Cadets they could throw out for the day...

 

I'm glad I was taught by, as you say, some real characters - but they had actually been there & done it before coming ashore.

 

Mark

[New Haven Neil]

Where did the Dox-box end up, Mark?  I did think it had been scrapped, pleased it survived.

[MarkC]

1 hour ago, New Haven Neil said:

Where did the Dox-box end up, Mark?  I did think it had been scrapped, pleased it survived.

Here, it seems, Neil...

http://www.enginemuseum.org/doxford.html

 

It should really have either been saved somewhere in Sunderland or at Beamish, but there we go

 

Mark

[johnofwessex]

Middle Son  (Autistic) is 14

 

He's building ships in Stormworks

 

Not one of his but ties sort of thing gets built in it

 

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2810738565&searchtext=

 

Anyway I can hear him talking to a fellow player advising him to fit a condenser in his steamship, and he seems to have learnt an awful lot about things like lifeboat davits, auxiluary machinery and goodness only knows what else

 

Fascinating!

 

[Pacific231G]

17 hours ago, MarkC said:

The Doxford engine has now gone - it was going to be scrapped, but thankfully a new home was found for it - not in the area though, IIRC.

 

I was at Shields for a few months in 1969-1970 having done my OND at Plymouth. Unlike Plymouth,  I enjoyed my time there not least because we didn't have to march around in uniform and other RN type stuff.

I agree that the Doxford should have been preserved more locally. When I was there we were in the final stages of putting it back together. By the time it was first run I'd left as I had a place at Uni (I'd already decided the MN wasn't for me)  but I did hear that when it was first run, without its silencer, it could be heard in Sunderland. 

Apart from the electric coal trains coming from Westoe Colliery and the tool box I made while learning welding there that I still use, the other thing I remember from there was cutting a three phase diesel gen into the national grid. I think there was an assumption that a lot of us would, after some years at sea, end up ashore working for the CEGB

I did try to visit the college one Saturday in the noughties when I had a team based at Tyne Tees TV who'd screwed up a load of code so I'd had to stay up there over the weekend. I was rather shocked to find it all locked up as I was a senior governor of a large FE college in London and at that time (as always)  colleges were all being squeezed financially. We were sweating our assets by running courses on Saturdays and I couldn't understand why they weren't doing the same.   A shame as I'd like to have looked around again. 

 

We used to go to the Latino Club in Shields but I gather it closed some years ago. I was also there when the largest ship ever built on the Tyne, a tanker ISTR,  was being taken out for sea trials and  most of Tyneside seemed to have turned out to watch it.  

Edited March 4, 2023 by Pacific231G

[MarkC]

4 hours ago, Pacific231G said:

I was at Shields for a few months in 1969-1970 having done my OND at Plymouth. Unlike Plymouth,  I enjoyed my time there not least because we didn't have to march around in uniform and other RN type stuff.

I agree that the Doxford should have been preserved more locally. When I was there we were in the final stages of putting it back together. By the time it was first run I'd left as I had a place at Uni (I'd already decided the MN wasn't for me)  but I did hear that when it was first run, without its silencer, it could be heard in Sunderland. 

Apart from the electric coal trains coming from Westoe Colliery and the tool box I made while learning welding there that I still have, the other thing I remember from there was cutting a three phase diesel gen into the national grid. I think there was an assumption that a lot of us would, after some years at sea, end up ashore working for the CEGB

I did try to visit the college one Saturday in the noughties when I had a team based at Tyne Tees TV who'd screwed up a load of code so I'd had to stay up there over the weekend. I was rather shocked to find it all locked up as I was a senior governor of a large FE college in London and at that time (as always)  colleges were all being squeezed financially. We were sweating our assets by running courses on Saturdays and I couldn't understand why they weren't doing the same.   A shame as I'd like to have looked around again. 

 

We used to go to the Latino Club in Shields but I gather it closed some years ago. I was also there when the largest ship ever built on the Tyne, a tanker ISTR,  was being taken out for sea trials and  most of Tyneside seemed to have turned out to watch it.  

Yes, it was a lot more relaxed than, say, Warsash, that's for sure!

 

I remember paralleling that genset too! A bit daunting at first.

 

I don't recall the college ever opening on Saturdays, tbh.

 

The Latino had become the Tavern by 1979 - some good times in there. It changed names a few times after that - and was owned by Jimmy Nail at one time too. It's now a gym, I think. I preferred the Chelsea Cat and Ruperts!

 

That big tanker - there were a few of them built. The first of class was the "Esso Northumbria"; the last, if memory serves, was the "Everett F Wells".

 

Mark

[jjb1970]

18 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

I was there for a course in 2015 having last been there about 15 years previous.

To say I was horrified to find the MarTech bar was now a gym is something of an understatement, that and there was a Costa Coffee in the actual college building. I suppose the two fearsome old ladies who the ran the Martech with a rod of iron are long gone.

No longer are there cadets or lecturers to be seen in the Westoe or County either for the usual lunchtime pints.

 

Of course all the lecturers I knew are long retired or indeed long dead, but I doubt their replacements are anything like them character wise; some of them were absolutely certifiable and most of the rest just nuts.

All followed the same mould of being proper local men who'd served their time with every one of them an ex Master deepsea with the college principally being a source of beer tokens or to keep them out of the way of the wife.

One lovely fellow (ex BP) who used to teach us chartwork and magnetic compass had made a lot of money as Master in foreign flag tankers running oil into SA during the embargo, he then became a North Sea Pilot and was very amenable to early knocks, smoking breaks and a pint or two with us before he caught the ferry home to North Shields.

Some of the ex BI and Blue Star blokes were something else too, "shot away" as we'd say, but in the nicest possible way. One of them told us all to take up smoking as it meant more fag breaks, plus making a rolly or filling your pipe was apparently a good way to play for time if something really bad was happening and you had to make a decision whilst at the same time appearing outwardly calm.

The Engineering and Radio types were very similar of course - I remember doing my engineering module and being ushered into the "Doxford Shop" to see that magical beast shaking the building to bits in between odd and usually very loud bangs. Then into the "BP shop" to see an array of museum pieces donated by my former employer like steam steering gear etc.

When I did my GMDSS ticket I also did that in Shields, and the ex R/Os taking the course made no attempt to conceal their bitterness and distaste for the new order. We weren't took keen on it either to be fair. One bloke kept waxing lyrical about the Pendennis Castle as he'd been on the thing forever and took it as a personal affront when she was withdrawn from service and sold by UCL, this was in between regularly b*llocking us for getting our Q codes and various other radio procedure wrong.

The things you remember?!

 

Regarding Warsash, I did my mates ticket down there - not through choice - and it was a real eye opener, especially after having heard all the stories. You could well see why Warsash was ideal for (and usually well filled by) passie boat and RFA types, whilst the rest of us mere mortals were much better off in places like Shields!

 

I can't help feeling the world has lost something, all the characters that made life memorable seem to be leaving the scene to be replaced by homogenized blandness. OK some of their opinions were...ahem...questionable, but fundamentally those old timers genuinely cared for those they were training and behind all the madness many of them did actually know their stuff. 

Edited March 4, 2023 by jjb1970

[Pacific231G]

On 04/03/2023 at 04:23, MarkC said:

Yes, it was a lot more relaxed than, say, Warsash, that's for sure!

 

I remember paralleling that genset too! A bit daunting at first.

 

I don't recall the college ever opening on Saturdays, tbh.

 

 

Hi Mark

It didn't, that was the point. FE Colleges went from local authority control to independent Corporations in the early 1990s but they were always underfunded (we've never valued skills properly) . Opening them on Saturdays was a way of getting more value out of their facilities while also enabling classes and upskilling to be offered to people working full time. Most of the colleges I knew, including my own, did that which is why I was surprised to find that the South Shields College (now  South Tyneside College) didn't. The buildings looked the same as I remembered them though.  I don't remember the MarTech bar so perhaps it came later. 

 

I don't know how Warsash compared with Plymouth but I had the impression that in those days it was even more like a military academy. ISTR that they taught their cadets ballroom dancing so they were destined for the self-loading-freight carriers. I did do some filming there in the 1980s for a programme I was making about maritime safety based on a major conference there. I recall that radar assisted collisions were a major theme but I particularly remember the ship simulator and the  smoke chamber used for fire-fighting training. It used real smoke which apparently the Fire Service equivalents weren't allowed to use, presumably because, wiith more and ongoing training, their exposure would be far more frequent. 

Edited March 7, 2023 by Pacific231G
clarification

[jjb1970]

I saw something in the news that Qingdao Qianwan Container terminal (QQCT) recently set a new global record of 422.38 moves per hour while handling the Maersk Salina. Apparently the second time QQCT broke the global shipping route record since the beginning of 2022. 

 

People in Europe and the US think I'm just being wilfully contrarian or provocative when I suggest that their terminal operators should go on fact finding missions to China and Singapore to study how to operate a container terminal efficiently (or poach some of their people), but I'm actually being completely serious.

[MarkC]

22 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Mark

It didn't, that was the point. FE Colleges went from local authority control to independent Corporations in the early 1990s but they were always underfunded (we've never valued skills properly) . Opening them on Saturdays was a way of getting more value out of their facilities while also enabling classes and upskilling to be offered to people working full time. Most of the colleges I knew, including my own, did that which is why I was surprised to find that the South Shields College (now  South Tyneside College) didn't. The buildings looked the same as I remembered them though.  I don't remember the MarTech bar so perhaps it came later. 

 

I don't know how Warsash compared with Plymouth but I had the impression that in those days it was even more like a military academy. ISTR that they taught their cadets ballroom dancing so they were destined for the self-loading-freight carriers. I did do some filming there in the 1980s for a programme I was making about maritime safety based on a major conference there. I recall that radar assisted collisions were a major theme but I particularly remember the ship simulator and the  smoke chamber used for fire-fighting training. It used real smoke which apparently the Fire Service equivalents weren't allowed to use, presumably because their exposure would be far more frequent. 

Hi David

 

A mystery then - especially as, back in the late 80s, the wonderful* local council wanted to get rid of the marine side. That was until it was pointed out to them that marine students, particularly those from abroad, contributed hugely to the town's finances and employment...

 

*other descriptions are available...

 

Mark

[St Enodoc]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

 

I can't help feeling the world has lost something, all the characters that made life memorable seem to be leaving the scene to be replaced by homogenized blandness. OK some of their opinions were...ahem...questionable, but fundamentally those old timers genuinely cared for those they were training and behind all the madness many of them did actually know their stuff. 

But we're the old f@rts now, aren't we, and I'd be horrified to think that the folks following behind us thought that we were examples of homogenised blandness! Anyway, speaking for myself, if I am it wasn't for the want of trying to be otherwise...

[Bon Accord]

1 hour ago, Pacific231G said:

Hi Mark

It didn't, that was the point. FE Colleges went from local authority control to independent Corporations in the early 1990s but they were always underfunded (we've never valued skills properly) . Opening them on Saturdays was a way of getting more value out of their facilities while also enabling classes and upskilling to be offered to people working full time. Most of the colleges I knew, including my own, did that which is why I was surprised to find that the South Shields College (now  South Tyneside College) didn't. The buildings looked the same as I remembered them though.  I don't remember the MarTech bar so perhaps it came later. 

 

I don't know how Warsash compared with Plymouth but I had the impression that in those days it was even more like a military academy. ISTR that they taught their cadets ballroom dancing so they were destined for the self-loading-freight carriers. I did do some filming there in the 1980s for a programme I was making about maritime safety based on a major conference there. I recall that radar assisted collisions were a major theme but I particularly remember the ship simulator and the  smoke chamber used for fire-fighting training. It used real smoke which apparently the Fire Service equivalents weren't allowed to use, presumably because their exposure would be far more frequent. 

 

As Mark has said the Marine side of things at Shields actually made them a fair bit of cash, specifically the foreign cadets and students as their fees were multiples of what the indigenous variety paid; I have it in my head that it was something like four times as much.

I do know that in the early 2000s there was a squeeze on local authority spending and South Tyneside Council saw the marine lecturers etc as being overtly expensive** compared to normal teachers and so a redundancy programme was initiated. Since practically all of them were old boys approaching or at retirement age, there was no shortage of volunteers to stick their hands up take the money and retire to the pub full time. The subsequent "brain drain" caused massive problems which I don't think they've ever fully recovered from with the council only realising they were sacrificing one of their few cash cows far too late. At that time Shields and Warsash were the top two nautical colleges academically speaking in the UK, with the likes of Glasgow, Fleetwood, Plymouth etc following in their wake.

 

**I believe the going rate for marine college lecturers now is something in the region of circa 35k. Unless someone is near retirement, has no real bills still to pay or has a specific reason to want to work at a college then there is realistically no chance they'll attract the senior mates/masters/engineers that they really want/need as they can find much better wages elsewhere, even shoreside.

Notwithstanding the small point that a lot of what is taught these days is how to do the job paint-by-numbers style rather than really going into the theory behind it all. For example the mathematical side of things is basically taught as a pro-forma and examined as such, rather than going into the all the reasons for etc., therefore the question is do you really need hugely experienced and knowledgeable blokes to teach it?

A few years back Fleetwood college were taking on newly qualified cadets - i.e. those who'd just got their ticket but had never used it in anger - as lecturers teaching the cadetship courses on 20k ish. Since many of them had endured less than ideal cadetships through absolutely no fault of their own (tonnage tax cadets) where the wisdom imparted to them during their seagoing training - if at all - could be highly questionable, that to me was really an example of the downward spiral of knowledge in the industry.

 

Warsash does still idolise the likes of Dartmouth I think. I had to revalidate my Shipmasters medical care certificate down there a few years back and it was much the same. Notices everywhere about uniform of the day etc, using the term cohorts instead of classes etc and all manner of other guff. Back in the day they used to drag them out for morning runs plus teach them important stuff like which way to pass the port bottle etc.

Warsash was also the first college where I'd seen cadets wear seagoing uniform to classes. At Shields, Glasgow etc there was a college uniform but that was navy blazer (with company badge), shirt, tie, trousers shoes etc and seagoing rig was strictly prohibited, principally because we weren't at sea. If you didn't appear presentable with the correct rig (including blazer) the college would write to your company and complain.

These days they all seem to follow the Warsash mould with woolly jumpers and epaulettes and if a tie is present the knot is normally dangling down somewhere near their belly button.

Aye, changed days!

[Bon Accord]

37 minutes ago, St Enodoc said:

But we're the old f@rts now, aren't we, and I'd be horrified to think that the folks following behind us thought that we were examples of homogenised blandness! Anyway, speaking for myself, if I am it wasn't for the want of trying to be otherwise...

 

What really terrifies me is that I'm now at an age and in a position which a youthful me would have automatically assumed to be a paragon of responsibility and knowledge, i.e. a grown up....

[jjb1970]

A few years ago I was asked to get involved in selling careers at sea and promoting cadetships. They must have been scraping the bottom of the barrel to ask me to get involved, however I declined. 

 

Part of me would have loved to do it. The MN isn't a perfect career, but it has provided me with an interested and varied career and life up to this point, and without being vulgar the only time I've been on minimum wage type income was as a cadet (and of course, the alternative for most students is to get an out of school job to keep themselves in drinks tokens etc).

 

However, when I look at the modern tonnage tax cadet schemes I couldn't in good conscience sell youngsters (or not so youngsters, they removed the age limit for cadets and now I see cadets almost as old as I am) the idea of a great career and opportunity when I knew fine well their only purpose was to satisfy the criteria for tonnage tax relief and that their employers had less than zero intention of keeping them on at the end of it.

 

If it was a case of bringing people into education on the same basis as other students where you do a degree or whatever course it might be knowing full well you'll need to find a job at the end of it that would be one thing and fair enough. But the likes of Clyde Marine were telling young people they were being trained by companies and would be taken on if they did well, pretty much trying to make their own dumbed down cadetships into the same idea as the old MNTB scheme. And colleges were joining in the mis-selling. I found that shameful.

 

Then again I also resigned from a professional institute when they told me that outreach to disabled people 'wasn't a priority'. I used to get e-mails every week about all their splendid work on gender diversity, an important effort I supported. But nothing at all on outreach to disabled people, despite representation of disabled people in maritime being insignificant. So I asked, and volunteered to do the work for them. Lest it be said 'well how's a disabled person going to work on a ship', not all disabilities necessarily preclude sea going employment, and more importantly the majority of marine engineering and naval architecture roles are not sea going. Roles such as design engineering, design approval surveyor, shore based ship operation and many others are open to people with many disabilities. The flippant way they dismissed my question after all their virtue signalling really annoyed me, then for months I kept getting messages asking why I'd left (after I told the CEO in a direct but polite way why I'd left, he was an old boss of mine in class).

[MarkC]

As I have said before, as I was climbing the greasy pole, now more years ago than I care to remember, I sailed with all sorts of characters - some good, some not so good, some incredibly good and some who really shouldn't ever have been there. Many of these folk were in senior positions.

 

I used to try & pick up the good things & discard the bad things that I witnessed. You know - "If I turn out half as good as this bloke, all will be well", to "If I turn out like this geezer, somebody shoot me". In general,  it's for others to judge, but I think that I got it right, judging by the number of young folk who seem to enjoy sailing with me...

 

I actively encourage my team to better themselves - indeed, some 15+ years ago, I saw a couple of my ER ratings, just wipers, respond to my encouragement & go for their tickets - they've been sailing as 3rd Engineers for several years now & are happy there. Good for them - both could have gone higher, but age/finances sadly worked against them.

 

Mark

[Pacific231G]

6 hours ago, MarkC said:

Hi David

 

A mystery then - especially as, back in the late 80s, the wonderful* local council wanted to get rid of the marine side. That was until it was pointed out to them that marine students, particularly those from abroad, contributed hugely to the town's finances and employment...

 

*other descriptions are available...

 

Mark

That would have been before incorporation when colleges received block grants from the local authorities who owned them. I became a college governor a year or two before incorporation in 1993, when they became independent of local authorities though if anything we became far more restricted in how we could use the money we got from the funding council. In particular, we weren't allowed to cross-subsidise courses so they all had to stand on their own feet financially and we couldn't even get away with marginal costing (i.e running a locally useful course using facilities already paid for by more mainstream activities).

One of the saddest decisions that we had to take, in an area with no large industrial employers, was to close our engineering courses. That didn't though prevent us from becoming a Railway Training "Hub" though the actual training for that was delivered by sub-contractors.

 

Something I've never got to the bottom of was whether the actual college based parts of MN cadetships (effectively three academic years within a five year apprenticeship) were paid for by the shipping companies or by the general educational budget that also covered things like University first degree courses as a national "good".  I've always assumed the latter as one could go to the local "tech" as an unsponsored student to do ONDs and A levels without paying fees.  

I'm not sure what the exact status of South Shields Marine and Technical College was. I believe that Plymouth College of Technology effectively split into an FE college and Plymouth University. Most of the cadet training there took place in a rather grotty annexe built around a  bombed out church - I think it had been a convent-  though the advanced training and , to our annoyance, the training of Marconi's radio officer cadets, took place in the main college building (where there were young women!)  

Edited March 4, 2023 by Pacific231G

[MarkC]

7 minutes ago, Pacific231G said:

That would have been before incorporation when colleges received block grants from the local authorities who owned them. I became a college governor a year or two before incorporation in 1993, when they became independent of local authorities though if anything we became far more restricted in how we could use the money we got from the funding council. In particular, we weren't allowed to cross-subsidise courses so they all had to stand on their own feet financially and we couldn't even get away with marginal costing (i.e running a locally useful course using facilities already paid for by more mainstream activities).

One of the saddest decisions that we had to take, in an area with no large industrial employers, was to close our engineering courses. That didn't though prevent us from becoming a Railway Training "Hub" though the actual training for that was delivered by sub-contractors.

 

Something I've never got to the bottom of was whether the actual college based parts of MN cadetships (effectively three academic years within a five year apprenticeship) were paid for by the shipping companies or by the general educational budget that also covered things like University first degree courses as a national "good".  I've always assumed the latter as one could go to the local "tech" to do ONDs and A levels without paying fees.  

I'm not sure what the exact status of South Shields Marine and Technical College was. I believe that Plymouth College of Technology effectively split into an FE college and Plymouth University. Most of the cadet training there took place in a rather grotty annexe built around a  bombed out church - I think it had been a convent-  though the advanced training and , to our annoyance, the training of Marconi's radio officer cadets, took place in the main college building (where there were young women!)  

I'm not sure what the score was with cadet fees, but I think that most was paid by the shipping companies - written off against tax, I would suspect, but we're talking almost half a century ago now.

 

As an aside, I believe that I may be the last ex British & Commonwealth Group (Union Castle, Clan line, King Line, Scottish Tankers)  seafarer still at sea, and possibly also the last (British) Gibson Gas Tankers seafarer still going.

 

Mark

(who is suddenly feeling quite sad)

[New Haven Neil]

All I can say about South Tyneside Council is my S-I-L was mayor and I cannot think of a less appropriate person. Seriously.

 

I'm not sure how many ex-Riversdale seafarers there may be left in the job, but as above I suspect not many.  One, who was my best man, I know is a Super, but other than that.....sheesh.

[Pacific231G]

54 minutes ago, MarkC said:

As I have said before, as I was climbing the greasy pole, now more years ago than I care to remember, I sailed with all sorts of characters - some good, some not so good, some incredibly good and some who really shouldn't ever have been there. Many of these folk were in senior positions.

 

I used to try & pick up the good things & discard the bad things that I witnessed. You know - "If I turn out half as good as this bloke, all will be well", to "If I turn out like this geezer, somebody shoot me". In general,  it's for others to judge, but I think that I got it right, judging by the number of young folk who seem to enjoy sailing with me...

 

I actively encourage my team to better themselves - indeed, some 15+ years ago, I saw a couple of my ER ratings, just wipers, respond to my encouragement & go for their tickets - they've been sailing as 3rd Engineers for several years now & are happy there. Good for them - both could have gone higher, but age/finances sadly worked against them.

 

Mark

Good for you Mark for encouraging them. I wish there were more in fairly senior positions willing to give such encouragement to their junior colleagues.  

Though I fairly quickly realised it wasn't right for me I can see a seafaring  career as being a great one for many and a great shame that we no longer really have much of a merchant navy. I guess it was the first industry to be truly globalised with all the associated pros and cons. 

 

What I was always grateful to the two colleges for was that when I was giving myself the option of bailing out to do a University degree and working like stink in my second year at Plymouth to get a good enough OND but "skiving off" things like sports and meals in the residence to spend more time in the library and, at South Shields, disappearing for a day or so several times to attend University interviews they turned a blind eye. I'm sure there were always a few cadets each year who did the same because someone else from my OND course at Plymouth turned up on my engineering course at Sussex - though doing a different major. 

I'd not thrived at school so it was the colleges that gave me my alternative route into higher education that led me to my real vocation as a BBC (etc.) programme maker.  I think it was gratitude for that that led me to want to put something back by becoming an FE  college governor and eventually chair.

8 minutes ago, MarkC said:

As an aside, I believe that I may be the last ex British & Commonwealth Group (Union Castle, Clan line, King Line, Scottish Tankers)  seafarer still at sea, and possibly also the last (British) Gibson Gas Tankers seafarer still going.

 

Mark

(who is suddenly feeling quite sad)

 I too was with Cayzer Irvine (British & Commonwealth 2&4 St. Mary Axe) though then they had Union Castle, Clan Line, Bowaters' paper ships (managed), and a couple of small tankers. In the 1980s they expanded massively into financial services but that led them into receivership in 1990. The last time I had any dealings with them was in 1980 when they formed Air UK from British Island Airways and Air Anglia which I did a story about for BBC South's regional news programme.    

 

  

[MarkC]

16 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

All I can say about South Tyneside Council is my S-I-L was mayor and I cannot think of a less appropriate person. Seriously.

 

I'm not sure how many ex-Riversdale seafarers there may be left in the job, but as above I suspect not many.  One, who was my best man, I know is a Super, but other than that.....sheesh.

You'll know all about Mr Monkey then - and the tens of thousands of local ratepayers' pounds wasted by certain councillors trying to stop him/her (mustn't assume the gender!) from blowing the whistle on their dodgy dealings...

 

Mark