

I first went to sea three days after me 15th birthday. My step dad was a bag of shite and me Mam’s brother filled in me papers and so I went. My stepdad previously had me sent to a Pru School up in Castle Howard when I was 13 because they said they couldn’t control me. But he’d been violent, really violent and this made me angry. I’m 5”2’ now so when I was 13 I was really little. When I was there they put me to work in the kitchens cooking for 300 boys. The cooks were ex Merchant Navy so I learnt lots. I was discharged on Nov 16th and got a train back to me grandmas in Hull.
I was out about three weeks before I went on the first trawler in 1966. Cape Tarfia – an ex mine sweeper. I was a galley boy which meant I worked to help the cook and tidy the bunks. This first trip was perfect, good weather the second I was sea sick for 18 days. It was so rough the sea. We would go up towards Norway. Sometime after that I burnt me arm on a water urn and it turned septic, on the stay trip an engineer broke his leg – it must have been rolling I guess -and they put him for port, but I didn’t get off. When I got back they signed me off for 2 months. Then I went again and it was around the time the Peridot, and triple trawler tragedy happened and everybody came to the docks to wait for us – even me mam and she never came to the docks. All the family were there waiting. I lost me best mates Eugene and Rob on the Peridot.
I went to see about being on the dock side over other side in east hull, this side was all trawler people, but they said I was too small and not strong enough. God they were strong moving everything in big vats. It was rough and good. I made good mates and had good times. We were like a band of brothers.
I was cooking on the fishing boats till 1971. I was courting my wife June by then and then we had a little girl and so I wanted to look after me family more. I went on pilot cutters off Spurn point and to catering School at the Nautical School on Boulevard.
I’ve always worked but eventually I got bad dermatitis from baking and became allergic to diesel fumes. So I went off shore and worked on pipe laying barges because I had me seaman ship. I did fetching and carrying. Often we worked with Norwegians on a mixed crew and the cook broke his leg so I did the cooking for 4 weeks but oof, the bread was all in freezers and the veg – I don’t think that’s good. I think bread should be fresh made.
I met me wife in 1968 and we got married in Oct 1970. And we were married until she passed nine years ago in 2014. It rained all day, stair rods rain, King Arthur the tattooist was my best man, he was a good mate. We had a great day in the Earl de Grey.
We got our first house on Midland Street when I was sailing out of Norway I had five days leave plus two days travelling so came home and got the keys and moved in. I asked me step dad to help us with some cash to buy the furniture but he was a money lender and said I had to pay him half a crown in the pound – I went to June’s dad instead. We then moved to east Hull but eventually we wanted to come back. So we moved back in 1983 we’d been in a council house but we got a transfer – the house looked like a skip with a roof, but they sorted it before we moved in and then we got it nice
“I got me first tattoo, a small one after me first trip when I was 15. I wanted to see what it was like – it was painful. But not as painful as me stepdad taking a scrubbing brush to me arm to try and rub it off. It says MAM/DAD. But I said “I can do what I want”. I was earning the money. I got to like em I guess. I reckon they used to do them with a six inch nail and drag them through your skin, it’s not like now with the fine needles.
I regret me hands, when I go out of town people would look at ya and I’d say “ There all mine!” People didn’t like tattoos then and at one interview for a job they said – we don’t have many crew with tattoos, but I told them they had accepted me on my experience they would have to accept me in person. It was a different mentality then, there was a bias, like I was anti-social. Having them you was a seen as a someone bad.
I have all me mates on me and all the girlfriends before me wife and the horseshoe is for luck. I had to have the knuckles changed because when I got tangled up with the police they said I better off get them changed. So I had the 4 symbols from cards. I’ve got a small King cod, a Scotland forever, because me mate Stuart was from Aberdeen and he had Kingston on Hull on his chest. Funny though we also wanted to have our wives names on but Billy Rudd / King Arthur made a mistake and so I’ve got Joan and he’s got June – we’ve got each other’s wives on our chests! And also I’ve got a Happy Hooker on me back, she’s walking the dog. A tattooist in Den Helden Holland did that for free because I let him take a photo of me so he could copy them for other sailors. He was visiting the hotels looking for British sailors. June went beserk when I came home and showed her. I’ve got spiders on me legs – I’ve never liked spiders…”
King Arthur was the only tattooist in Hull then , there was no one else. Tattoos have a code, but all walks of life have them. Like my earing. Ive worn it since I was 16, if you wore two it meant you were gay like carrying a hankie in your back pocket. All these codes we knew that people used.
I have a sister, Helen and I look after me mam now she’s 90 and she’s had a fall..But she does well living on her own. She is one of 11. – massive families, but we all helped each other out. Kids were always fed somewhere and when things happened we pulled together. God people think it was hard on the men at sea but I know it was harder on the women, all the kids, the extra jobs they did to make ends meet, it was hard graft, the washing and food. Me mam for example worked in a smelly fish house before she went to her job in the shoe factory on Lister st and then after she went to another part time job. It didn’t matter whether the families were on the barges, tugs or fishing we backed each other up and stuck by people. People helped you out if you got into bother.
I did 3 stints in North Sea Camp [Borstal] for fighting all before I was 20. The second time was after I went to Sheffield and got in a fight in a pub because a man was looking funny at us, I kept saying what’s the matter -you’re winding me up? So I said summat – they kicked me from one end of the pub to the other. When I got sent down for 6 months I asked to be sent to prison because NSC was so hard. But the judge wasn’t in my game. I was done for protecting my wife. June was pregnant and while I was in the loo in town 2 blokes attacked her for her bag – they knocked her to the floor. So I ran out when I heard her screaming and stood up to them. The police came and split us up. We lost the baby and I got sent away. This was the last time because June said if you keep doing that she’d go. I didn’t have her visit the first time but when she did come she was so upset. They had shaved our heads, we were in prison striped shirts and shorts. It was so hard. All me wavy hair was gone – it was sad seeing her like that. I came out that last time a changed person. Since then I’ve worked hard, I’ve turned me life around.

