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In February of 1960 I started my 6 week Catering Course at Gravesend Sea
Training School. I was 15 years old, and in hindsight, with children of my
own, it seems very young indeed!
I remember walking up to those intimidating iron gates wondering "What the
hell have I done" and look back on that time with some very mixed feelings
indeed.
Within a very short time after my arrival I realised that I was going to
miss my parent’s modest high rise council flat in SW London. From that
moment on, my outlook on life changed forever! Never again was I to take
the comforts of a loving secure home for granted, and after travelling
around the world the whole of my working life, I still feel that way today.
I look back on those 42 days with a positive feeling of having 'done it'. It
was tough for young kids, the first time away from home, but we enjoyed some
good laughs along the way. One of the very first things that struck me was
all the different accents. For a kid brought up in Putney and Fulham, the 'Scoucers',
'Geordies' and 'Jocks', all sounded to me like foreigners! I'd only heard
people talk like that on the telly before!
My outstanding memories were those bloody awful 'bogs'; absolutely no
privacy, just a row of doorless cubicles; the marches around the 'prom' each
morning; very cold, damp weather; and most of all, the desperation to make
it through the passing out exam at the end of our course. It was made very
clear to the 20 or so boys in my course that failure would win us an
additional week at the “Gravesend Resort on Thames”. The same river
flowed past my 'Manor' in Putney, but it looked a whole lot different now!
By and large the instructors were a decent bunch, a certain Mr Shaw being
the best and a Quartemaster, Mr Philips (?) the worst. This guy had a bad
reputation for getting lads to sign for items of kit they hadn’t received.
To take advantage of a bunch of gullible kids was shameful. Discipline must
have been strict because I can only remember one serious fight that resulted
in two 'deckies' being sent home because of it. Any hint of serious trouble
and it was made very clear to everyone that it was "Auf Wiedersehen, Pet'
full stop and no possible chance of joining The British Merchant Navy again.
I remember one of the deck lad who had been fooling about on the promenade
deck. He fell into the filthy, freezing Thames and he nearly lost his life.
Another lad grabbed a life buoy and jump in after him. Without a shadow of
doubt this saved the first kids life as he wasn't a strong swimmer and the
tide had just started to go out.
I always thought that the town of Gravesend was the most aptly named place
on the planet and I remember it rained, sleeted or snowed, seemingly every
day. There was a coffee bar called 'The Blue Dolphin', or something like
that, in town where all the locals kids would meet, both male and female.
Of course the local lads resented the boys from the school who they saw as a
challenge for the local 'talent' and they were always up for a fight which
often proved not to be a good idea because many of the lads from the school
were 'very' useful in that department.
After spells on the 'Iberia', 'Himalaya' and 'Canberra' I returned to
'civvy' street and it's there my time in the MN really paid off! In January
'67' I applied for, and was accepted as a cabin crew member grade 2 with
British European Airways. After another 6 week course (this was a walk in
the park after GSTS!) I started flying with them and it turned out to be the
best thing I ever did career wise. Over a period of 25 years I flew on all
sorts of aircraft, including Viscounts, Vanguards, Tridents, Tristars and
finally Concorde, on which I was a Cabin Service Director for nearly 4
years, meeting more famous people than you could 'shake a stick at'.
I think back to that skinny kid who passed through those intimidating gates
at Gravesend all those years ago and know, without a shadow of a doubt, that
my grounding in the 'Merch' went a long, long way to my being accepted by
BEA. I'll be forever grateful for that.
Sometime around 1974 I wasn't too far away from the old “Peanut Factory” in
Gravesend and decided to pay a nostalgic visit to the old school. It wasn’t
too long before the old school was due to be pulled down, and it was empty
and locked. However, I managed to get into the property and many memories
came flooding back: the toilet block (that's a laugh!), the Mess hall, the
Main Hall where we were all shown an outrageous B/W film about STDs, the
promenade deck where a young kid like me so very nearly died. Looking up, I
could see where the 'cabins' were against the 'dorm' block'. All gone now,
just the ghosts of generations of young kids who had followed their dream
and taken what would most likely have been, the biggest chance of their
young lives....
I spent an emotional hour or so wandering around, and felt that I could
almost feel the hopes, fears and dreams of the many thousands of boys who
did their 'time' at GSTS.
I honestly don't believe that many of the kids of today could cope with the
conditions and hardships of yesterday, Many of them excel at running amock
around shopping centres, their hoods up over their heads, scaring lots of
folk; but could these same hoodlums have handled the same rigours and
discipline of any of
the Sea Schools? Those kids of yesterday seemed to have a far more decent
outlook on life back then, than their counterparts of today.
Mike
Beasley
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