A life spent on the Ocean Wave.
Back in 1975, when the music was good, I set out to explore the world, as a green navigating apprentice in the Merchant Navy. I was seventeen and had never left England before.
My first new experience was a flight from London to Houston, TX, via Montreal. There, after a couple of days in a hotel and a cheeky visit to the Johnson Space Center, I joined my first ship.
Over the years that followed, until my retirement in 2015, I managed to clock up many miles as I pottered about the globe, visiting a lot of places that changed the way I thought about life and my place in the scheme of things.
Back in those days, globalisation wasn’t really a thing. Every place still had a non-corporate atmosphere and was truly different to everywhere else. Even parts of the same country felt like you were somewhere new. It was also well before the days of camera phones, the internet and satellite communications. Once you left England, you were alone and largely out of touch. Mail was something that turned up occasionally. Phone calls were difficult and expensive.
I took pictures, not as many as I would have liked. Sadly, a lot of them haven’t survived the passage of time for various reasons, so all I have are a few and the memories.
Memories of places that no longer exist, like the Twin Towers in New York, which I went up in 1977.
Or places that have been changed irrevocably, like Kherson in Ukraine. I have no pictures of that. When I visited it, in 1977, it was still in the U.S.S.R., and the local police impounded all our cameras for the duration of our stay.
But I do remember going to football matches and meeting ordinary people. And being followed by shady-looking men in dark suits wherever we went.
Every place that I went to, I tried to go ashore as much as possible. I wanted to see more of where I was than just the port. I explored the towns and cities. If I had time, I would get on a bus or train and wander off into the countryside. I was in search of the real world, and a bit of time away from the enclosed community of a ship. Not only that, it seemed a waste to head for the nearest bar and drink the local beer (although I did that too).
I wanted to see and absorb the way things were and get an insight into how other people lived. It was always interesting, occasionally frightening. I could tell you a few tales about my days out in some of the more exotic locations.
One thing I did learn fairly quickly was a few useful phrases in various languages. And to carry identity documents at all times.
As the years passed, I managed to get to some really out-of-the-way places. Like taking a 40,000-tonne ship 600 miles up the Amazon. Or rounding Cape Horn,
or finding a new route for ships through the Farasan Islands to Jizan (in the Red Sea).
I’ve been shot at (twice), sneaked a ship out of Gdynia during the Solidarity protests in 1981 and seen nature at its most powerful and awe-inspiring.
I had more than enough adventures to last me, with nothing to do with them except bore my children, grandchildren and anyone else who was in earshot.
Or so I thought.
Now I’ve retired, and my exploring days are over; I draw on all those memories to help build the worlds and plots in my fiction.
Stories from my sea-going days are modified to become adventures in space. The people I met and worked with have had their names changed and crop up as heroes or villains.
Places I’ve been to find themselves moved to other planets or even placed in alternative realities.
In my mind, as I create, I’m back exploring, and the memories live again.
You can read more about my life at sea in my fiftieth anniversary celebration.
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