Tims Times

One of the AB’s is off home tomorrow after completing his contract, his replacement is already here, I could see that it was him from the distance, he was adjusting the securing lines on the gangway. That’s his thing, adjusting the gangway, he gets most satisfaction in securing and resecuring the gangway, another guys thing is emptying the bins, he can’t see corner of a wrigleys wrapper in the wastepaper basket it”ll be emptied before you can chew the gum into a ball. And yet another guys thing is mooring ropes, he can’t leave them be if they need to be adjusted once every four hour,he’ll do it four times an hour. We all have our little habits and peculiarities, the ship could be sinking and one AB would be taking down the flags because it is sundown and they have to come down.

I sailed with an old AB called John Thomas once but we all knew him as Dave, he had been a steward all his career and had sailed in the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth among others. He was made redundant as a Steward from Esso when they started downsizing crews but was offered a job as AB, you can see the logic there as any one can……old Dave was as gay as Christmas and would arrive in to the control room fluttering his eyebrows “I’m off to do me knitting” I had no clue the first time he said it but he meant that he was going to adjust the mooring ropes. A really nice guy useless AB but the sandwiches were great. He’s probably retired now and cruising around in his black leather gear on his Honda Goldwing.

Dave and Dave the other AB (there were 7 Daves on the ship, two Johns of which Dave was not included and 4 others, so it got very confusing surnames were used for addressing people mostly as calling out “Dave” led to lot of head turning)were great lads for pointing out when something had gone wrong how they knew that it would happen. They’d say ” I could have told you that would happen”, I’d ask “Why didn’t you tell me?” they’d say “You never asked” .I think thats when I started scratching the side of my head, one of my things.