Changing Course - Fishing Trips, Merchant Ships and New Directions: Good Life Merchant Navy, Sunday Dinner Every Day.

When I grew up in Hull during the 1950s and 60s, the city was a major seaport and the home, at the time, of the largest distant water fishing fleet in the country if not the world. As a fifteen-year-old it was natural that I wished to chance my luck in this world-famous industry and I left Hull’s Trinity House Navigation School and signed on my first trawler as a galley boy – without my parent’s permission. At sixteen I progressed to become a deckie learner but soon realised that there were easier and safer ways to earn a living, so leaving the icy cold wild Arctic waters around Iceland, Norway, Bear Island and Spitzbergen, in search of more exotic places, I joined the merchant navy. This book recalls the experiences that followed. From my life as a naive, young sailor just starting out, to my time working on almost every type of ship imaginable including: tankers, short-sea traders, tramps, coasters, a ferry and, finally, pilot cutters on the Humber operating from Hull, Grimsby and Spurn Point. “Changing Course” also explores aspects of the life of a young sailor both at home and away. Also mentioned in the book is how the Seafarers' Education Service and the Open University, as well as some significant individuals, assisted me to navigate down a diverse and unexpected career path.