The most stupid thing I ever did!

Most stupid thing I did

When I was in the Merchant Navy way back in the late 60's I was just a young deck boy. The ship was called the Canberra Star of Blue Star Line. She was known as a refrigerator ship and would sail to New Zealand to load up with frozen lamb destines for the British dinner table.

It was certainly a different time and place to what it is today. The crew were mainly a motley bunch of Glaswegians who would not tolerate a naive over sheltered boy like me. As a consequence, I was bullied a lot on board this ship.

One day, some of the crew ganged up on me and were out to get me. I tried everything to avoid them but I was cornered on the stern of the ship. It was a calm day in mid Atlantic, the horizon clear all round the ship. The nearest land hundreds of miles away. I was afraid of what these guys were going to do to me so I did what I thought was a great idea. If you have seen the film Titanic and you remember what Rose did? Yes she climbed over the railings right on the stern. This is exactly what I did.

The crew were horrified and just melted away, knowing just how dangerous this was and did not want to be party to a fatality. Had I lost my grip then it was almost certain that I would have died since it is particularly hard to find a person in the sea even at close range.

I climbed back over the railings and decided never to attempt anything so stupid again.