David Aris
David belongs to: The Doxford Engine Friends Association
David was born in Sunderland. He served his apprenticeship at North East Marine shipyards as a fitter. After working at sea David became an Assistant Manager at Doxford's ship yard overseeing the installation and testing of Doxford engines.
David was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 8 November 2005. The interview took place at the Interviewee's living room and lasted 1 hour, 36 minutes and 40 seconds.
Swimming in ballast tanks on the tankers
"We didn’t have swimming pools on the ship, they weren’t modern ships in that respect"
We didn’t have swimming pools on the ship, they weren’t modern ships in that respect, so of course we were in very hot climates so very often we used to do what, I think, now is very dangerous thing. If you’re on your way back from, say Australia and the ship was empty, the ship was in ballast, the cargo tanks were full of sea water, they’d all be cleaned out with steam and they would keep the water ballast in, and we used to open the hatches on the deck and we used to go down and we used to swim inside the cargo tanks, and the ship was all like this, and you were swimming about and this water was- when I think about it it was a rather stupid thing to do.
On one ship, you’re asking about recreation there, on one of the diesel ships we actually built our own swimming pool- we had a lot of spare pipe and we built like scaffolding and we put, we put a big canvas, big piece of canvas and made a swimming pool. And the captain used to make us just empty when we loaded cargo because it used to make the ship go over like that and you’d loose a bit of cargo.
David has 17 memories in the memorynet:
David's memories with a Roles and Routines theme:
Apprenticeship at North East Marine- Returning to the North East and Doxford's
- Role at Doxford’s
- Going on sea trials
David's other memories:
- Father’s time at sea
- Going to sea
- Swimming in ballast tanks on the tankers
- Safety and dangers at sea
- Industrial action at Doxford's
- Accident on sea trials
- Leaving Doxford’s
Workers at Doxford's- Engineer's Certificate
- Continuous Certificate of Discharge
- Swimming pool
- North East Marine Guide for Apprentices
- Sea Trials
This memory has these themes:
Danger | Environment | Leisure | Work
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