Joined this ship a Shell Tanker in September 1965 at Stanford Le Hope in essex. She was a clean oil tanker (refined products). We called at Lagos and Port Harcourt in Nigeria, Douala in the Cameroon, and Brazzaville in the Congo. We then crossed the Atlantic to the Carribean calling at Aruba, Curacoa and Trinidad. Back across the pond and paid off in Birkenhead in January 1966.
Having attained the mature age of 18 I attended an EDH and Lifeboat course in St Katherines dock London, still a working dock then. I stayed with an Aunt in Harrow and commuted daily on the tube to Aldgate. Each and every day of that journey convinced me my choice of career was correct, as commuting would surely have drove me doo lally.
