Quote:
Originally Posted by Dartskipper
Did he ever meet Kate Adie?
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Never thought of that before Roy! He most certainly should have, although I am not sure she would have been that interested in the stories of a Geordie Shipwright turned Welder!
That 'Demolition Dick' had special abilities to attract bad luck wherever he was, were by then well known to family and friends - but we were about to find out that they were not just limited to war!
I had arranged to meet my brother Owen in the Autumn of 1980 - when he was standing by an old US flagged Tanker which he was bringing out from a refit in Wallsend Docks (continuing some structural work on the ship during the passage across the pond I believe), we had agreed in letters between us, that we would meet up when both of our ships were berthed in Galveston (I was in HMS Achilles at the end of a 6 month WIGS (West Indies Guard Ship) deployment at the time, so I had booked a few days 'station leave' during our planned Galveston visit).
Predictably, as we sailed on our passage to Galveston from Curacao on our way north through the Caribbean to the Gulf of Mexico (and getting to see my brother for the first time in over a year), Hurricane Allen arrived from astern. Allen turned out to be one of the worst hurricanes in recorded history, leaving a fair bit of torment and destruction in its path North. Not a pleasant few days at sea I must say!
Needless to say, our carefully arranged meeting in the States was now scuppered - and it was to be another 6 months before we met - as Achilles was diverted to help with hurricane relief work around the Caymans (one of the main tasks of the WIGS ships at that time). Of course - natural disasters in his vicinity were also attributed to my brothers 'Jonah reputation' by family and friends!
He was happy though - as it allowed him some extra time in Texas to feed his lifelong obsession with the Wild West, I still have some of his 'Western' paraphernalia he obtained on that trip in a box in my loft, which I inherited when he sadly crossed the bar in 2005.