maritime

  As I wrote my Xmas message for my friends, I found myself troubled by world affairs. It is not just the wars in Gaza and Ukraine but the global battle between democracy and autocracy and how ineffective the UN system has become. I worked for many years both in and with the UN and firmly believed that world order and global support for the less privileged was best done by that global club of nations. Now I am not so sure. Around us there are many examples of power hungry would be and existing presidents who want nothing more than to control their countries. From Hungary to Turkey, USA to Israel, Russia, and many other countries working together to improve global peace and prosperity is not on their highest priority. A recent article in the Economist bemoans the ineffectiveness of the Security Council of the UN with its archaic veto system that allows any of the five most powerful members to veto proposals for peace and worse even when one of those five members holds the chai...

  In the fifth form at Acklam Hall Grammar School, I was faced with a dilemma. GCE examinations were to take place, the result of which were crucial in deciding whether to continue to sixth form for two years and another set of exams. The A levels are precursors to applying for a university place. Therefore, results in both GCSE and A level exams were important. By only creeping past 11 plus exams by interview after failure in the exam itself, coupled with my poor academic performance at grammar school, did not bode well for further study. On the other hand, it would mean two more years of rugby! The results of my GCE examinations would be crucial here. I got five passes out of eight subjects. It seemed OK. However, my brother got 7 out of eight sitting a year earlier as a fourth former! On reflection, the thought of five more years of study at school and university if I were successful in A levels which are much more specialised and harder was not appealing and I decided to ...

 

Acklam Hall grammar school Five years of my teenage life was spent at Acklam Grammar School. And the school intention was that these years would turn me into an intelligent and capable adult, ready to take on a further higher education in university.   It did not turn out like that. My intelligence, as measured by academic achievement and progression, did not improve. And I remained bottom of my class in all five years. However, there was a slight improvement in the 5th year. That year was renamed 5G rather than 5C, supposedly because it included the German language in our class schedule. Capability was a different asset. I seemed to develop a skill that always got me into trouble. A few examples will demonstrate that hidden character in me that blossomed in those years. The target for such behaviour was often a teacher or classmate. Hilton of the woodwork incident was often the victim. Once we locked him in the classroom cupboard and only a question by the teacher about ...

 Acklam Hall Grammar School I remember the day the term 11 plus was mentioned. It was one spring day and dad said “son”, he always called me son, your 11 plus exam is soon. Are you prepared? Well, the answer was no, I had not even heard of it. Apparently, it is a written exam. The results of which determined whether you follow a route to university education or secondary school and a trades career like plumbing or building.   A sort of intelligence test as they called them in the 1950’s. The day arrived and we were given a pamphlet full of questions. Of which we had a set period of time to complete. You need to remember that in the 1950’s the UK was not metric, far from it. It had its own weird set of standards. For instance, money, pounds, shillings, and pence. 12 pennies to a shilling, 20 shillings to a pound plus half pennies and farthings. Worse was length with fractions of an inch, feet, and yards stop. 3/8 of an inch, 2 feet, 6 inches, etc. Then there was weights a...

  My mothers early years - written by my brother Peter Douglas We were in my Father’s Day cabin.   He wanted me to meet the officers prior to the ship sailing across the Atlantic.   Mother had died 3 years before and I had already travelled on a couple of voyages with my shipmaster father.   This promised to be as exciting as the others. No doubt Dad hoped that somewhere I would find someone who was prepared to put up with what he called my feisty nature and marry me before my 30th birthday.   There wasn’t long to go.   Maybe there would be someone in Savannah our first stop, someone like Rhett Butler the hero in the new book I was reading.   The Chief Engineer was like so many other engineers I had met, a dour Scotsman, the First Mate a Geordie, and the Wireless Operator from Hull.   The second mate was on watch, but my father called the Third Mate up from supervising the last of the cargo loading.    Mum is in the middle and Dad ...

  Trials and tribulations at the airport Lately we have been using group travel to travel abroad instead of all the planning necessary when you do it yourself. It is convenient and you meet interesting people also in the group. The downside is that the itinerary is decided, and timing is sometimes not convenient. Take our last trip to Puglia in southern Italy in October. The travel instructions stated that we meet up at the airport at 0515, that is very early for us and necessitated an overnight stay in an airport hotel. Early morning in the airport was chaos, it seems that all charter companies have early morning departures. We rush to find a free check-in automat, no friendly face just a machine that seems to demand an ever-increasing number of personal details before spewing out baggage tags and boarding passes. Pushed out of the queue by impatient persons behind us we found a free space to attach our baggage tags and store our baggage id tags, not in your passport at it...