The following passage has been taken from ‘A deck Boy’s diary’ an April 2000 publication by the author, and a book which relates to cutty sark. in this chapter, a small number of grammatical changes have been made from the original publication, but only for the configuration of the text in the passage.

During my first trip to sea as a 16 year old deck boy, my ship Willesden of London arrived at Tilbury Dock in November 1953. The ship had signed on at Hull in July of the same year, and after a four month trip to India the voyage was almost at an end. However, there was to be the added ‘around the land’ discharging before the ship paid off. This meant a visit to Antwerp, Hamburg and Hull before paying off at Middlesbrough. Whilst in London some of the crew who were going back on the ship’s next voyage went on leave. Two of these ‘company’s men’ were the bosun and my cabin mate the lamp-trimmer. In due course, an AB who was the lamp-trimmer’s relief, and one who was to be my new cabin mate arrived onboard.