|
Hello
I grew up in Hull in the 1950s and 60s when the city was the third major seaport in the country and the home of the largest distant-water fishing fleet in the world.
I left the Hull Trinity House Navigation School at age fifteen to join a deep-sea trawler as galley boy with a view to a career on the trawlers. As soon as I could I became a deckie learner (trainee deck-hand) but then soon realised that there were easier ways of making a living at sea other than being on the open deck gutting fish in all weathers, so I left the fishing fleet and the treacherous Arctic waters and joined the merchant navy in search of more exotic places and experiences. The companies that I sailed with included: Wilsons, AHL, Shell, NZSC, Haines, Hadley, UBC, Chapmans, and others.
I spent eight years in the merchant navy before joining the Humber Pilots' Steam Cutter Company and becoming a pilot launch coxswain, a role I held for another seven years. During this time I studied for an Open University degree and became a part-time lecturer at Hull College while continuing my job on the pilot boats. Eventually I decided that I would like to pursue a career in education and in 1978, after sixteen years at sea, I became a full-time lecturer at Boston College in Lincolnshire.
I spent nine years in Boston starting as a lecturer and then moving into a management role as a Youth Training Scheme manager. I was then asked to introduce adult training schemes for the long-term unemployed into the college and after the success of this work was offered a job as Head of Department of Adult Training, Education and Community Development at East Birmingham College. I worked in education in Birmingham for the next twenty years serving in a number of roles both within the college and across the city of Birmingham. One of these roles was manager of the Birmingham and Solihull Widening Participation Project designed to get all of the education providers in those areas co-operating to encourage new adult learners to take up the opportunities on offer. My final role before retiring was as Head of Campus of East Birmingham College which was then part of City College, Birmingham.
I contributed to a number of educational publications during my career but it was only in retirement that I decided to “swing the lamp” and write about my own education and my experiences during my time at sea as even when in shore based employment I still considered myself a silly sailor. The book is called:
“Changing Course: Fishing Trips, Merchant Ships and New Directions” and is available at £9.95 from Kay Books, Riverhead Books, and Amazon. It is also available in ebook format from Amazon or Kobo at £3.99.
I live in Solihull, a town about as far away from the sea as you can get if you don't count the Grand Union Canal, with my wife of over forty years, Marilyn.
|