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IN MEMORY OF VINDI BOYS
from our Vindi branch
WHO HAVE CROSSED THE BAR
********
Gerald Neville Strangward ‘Nev’ 16 Dec. 1929 - 30 Sept. 2008
Nev was born in Cambridge one of eight children, he was always keen to work and earn money to help the family along spending a few years doing a ‘Milk Run’ which gave him a broad education a good market base of regular customers for when the American GI’s invaded the county and he upgraded to trading cigarettes obtained from the friendly soldiers.
What he traded for the cigarettes isn’t know, perhaps it was his local knowledge of all things local.
Like a lot of lads at that time eager to do something he joined the MN and stepped aboard the Vindi in early 1946 aged sixteen. Not a one company man he took what was going on the London pool, among his many ships there were a few Blue Star ships and in 1950 he joined the brand new Cargo/passenger liner ‘Magdalena’ which followed the ‘Titanic’ to became the third Harland & Wolff not to return from it’s maiden voyage, the ship struck rocks near Rio de Janeiro fortunately everyone got safely off as the ship broke it’s back, some, of the lifeboats landed on the famous Copacabana beach.
Two years ago Nev attended a ‘Magdalena’ reunion in Belfast and met up with shipmates from 56 years ago, interviewed by the BBC Nev as practical as ever said “No-one felt particularly heroic at the time. None of us wanted to get the VC, all we wanted to do was get off”.
After eleven years at sea he met the love of his life Bobbie at the ‘Empress’ pub in
Following a family tradition Nev & Bobbie also went into the hotel business for a few years by running the ‘Bell Inn’ in Bottisham a village halfway between Cambridge & Newmarket
In 1966 they decided to try a new life in Australia and became 10 pound Pom’s in 1966, at first living with friends in then settling in the Sutherland shire area of Sydney.
Nev went to work for TAA, following the demise of TAA (Trans Australia Airline) he became a traveling Rep in the Grocery trade, a job he loved as he liked to travel and to meet and make friends out all his customers.
Made redundant from this company in 1985 they ’retired’ to Lennox Hd. on the NSW North coast, retirement didn’t quite suit just then so they both found work, Nev going into the grocery trade then in the Self Storage business, until retirement finally crept up on them.
Nev not a willing gardener took up Lawn Bowls and stayed out of the way while Bobbie blessed with green thumbs created a lovely garden in their Lennox head home.
Life dealt them a cruel blow when Bobbie was diagnosed with cancer and had to have several major operations over a few years during her brave fight against it but finally succumbing and passing away in 2004.
Neville later made some trips back to the UK his last trip was in May 2008, when he left he wasn’t feeling too good but it was thought to be the effects of a fall he had had recently but on his return in August it was found that he was suffering from a cancer in his liver.
Neville was only able to spend just two weeks in the care of his son Ken at his home in Caringbah before being admitted to the Calvary hospital were he passed away on the 30th. of September
Our deepest condolences to Ken and his family.
The 'Magdalena' that Nev sailed on aged 20
******
Peter Fairey 24/9/1925-17/2/2008
Peter Fairey cooking lunch at the Orient Hotel Sydney Cove at out first vindi meeting march 1995
Peter who died recently in the Prince of Wales hospital in Sydney was born in Pitsea Essex one of four children in the family, he had a most interesting life right from his early years he travelled and lived overseas following his father’s job as a civil Engineer, his boyhood was spent in such places as Uganda, East Africa, Turkey, Abadan, Tehran.
By the time he joined the Vindi in 1941 he was a veteran traveller, during his time at sea in WW2 he was torpedoed twice one of these being on a Russian convoy. It was whilst he was on leave between voyages in 1944 that he met his wife to be Joan at his cousin’s birthday party in Essex, they were married in May of 1945 and despite their many travels in the future they found time to have two daughters and a son.
On leaving the MN in 1946 Peter joined the British Army then in another surprising career change he joined the London police force in 1947 being stationed at the South End police station, there he met another Policeman who had been in the MN during WW2 his name was John Watkins, after a year their ways parted, the next time they met was 47 years later at the first NSW Vindi reunion held in Sydney in March 1995, you can imagine the surprise when they finally realised why the other fellow looked familiar! John Watkins was a 1939 Vindi boy.
In 1948 Peter was seconded from the regular police force by the ‘Special Branch’ (MI6) and served with them for most of his working life in many parts of the world.
His first posting was to the Malaya Police Force which it seems was an organisation run by MI6. During the Malayan emergency, he worked in the rank of a Major in the intelligence section.
In 1961 upon leaving Malaya he was stationed in
It had always been peters ambition to own a Toy & Sports shop, on settling in
Peter then took a posting to Bahrain consulate during the Khemlani Loans Affair but as he didn’t see eye to eye with his chief he returned to Sydney seven months later, a move that finally severed his links with the ‘spooks’ and returning to Sydney he became secretary to the Sydney Chamber of Manufacturers.
Following his retirement from paid employment he and Joan settled onto to the acreage at Yarrwonga near Gulgong they had purchased in 1968.
Here they set about being useful to the local community, when Maureen & I visited them in May of 97 they were linchpins of the local community, I think both Peter and Joan were Bush fire brigade Captains (the local station was just outside their front gate) also they were on numerous local committees, some they started like the local progress association and the Malay/Borneo veterans association and Peter was also president of the Gulgong RSL.
They had an impressive flagpole on their front lawn and the flag went up with ceremony every morning and down every night. They were I think natural born empire Builders of the best sort!
They just couldn’t help but help.
After a life of so many adventures and rigours cancer struck peter down in November of 97 when he had to have his stomach removed, he got over this really well and leaned to live a full life again until a year or two ago he began getting frequent attacks of Pneumonia & Emphysema then in November 2007 he was diagnosed with inoperable cancer of the oesophagus.
"Sunset" ceremony at the Yarrwonga (NSW) property may 1997 (the little fat guy is yours truly)
I would like to thank Joan for the good talk we had, she said they had no regrets, they had a good long life together and he died believing this and was content and happy.
Our deepest sympathies to Joan their three children 8 grand children & 4 G/Grandchildren & Families.
*******
ANTHONY GORDON MAYNARD (TONY)
27-Feb-1934 - Jan 17-2008
I only had the pleasure of meeting Tony a few times, the first time was when he had just had an operation in which he lost a leg because of diabetes. Maureen & I called at the home of local Vindi Boy Clive Sergeant who was more in the picture with Tony’s condition, the three of us went around to the hospital to visit Tony and I remember ‘geeing’ myself up to be cheerful to try and cheer Tony up, when we got in there it was Tony who cheered US up!
I was amazed, we had a wonderful time with him, ‘long & tall’ stories streamed out, we went around the world a couple of times, plenty of laughter and a real good feeling, I came out of that hospital on a high and have never stopped thinking about how Tony could be so good and cheerful, facing what he was facing at that time.
He was born in the north
School days were something to be suffered & got over but he seemed to have enjoyed the war years in
Leaving school his first job was in the local shoe factory but he soon got himself thrown out for marking shoes with the wrong sizes to go and join his Uncle Charlie at sea.
Tony joined the Vindi in 1950 as a catering boy and took to the life like a Duck to water and entered the British Merchant Navy in its Heyday serving for the next 18 years on ships whose names have become icons of those glory days. Cunard, Union Castle, New Zealand Shipping Company, Shaw Saville, Bibby Line, P&O, Orient line & Ellerman’s amongst many famous shipping companies.
His wartime skills education soon had him climbing the ladder - from cabin Boy on the Sithonia, asst/steward on NZSC Rangitoto to the
It was a lovely young lady from Dubbo that he met on the Orcades in 1965 that brought a swift end to his seagoing shenanigans. Alison his future wife to be had just finished her nursing training in
Tony soon became a 10 pound Pom and married Alison in her home town of
They settled at first in Narrabeen were daughters Rebecca & Nicole were born, Tony went into business buying & selling smallgoods and delivering to shops with his truck. Later they had a Jewellery shop and a motel in Gosford from which in 1993 Tony retired from work.
In 1997 he became ill with Diabetes and in the years to come he suffered from increasing complications of the disease, but through it all he never once lost the smile on his face or his cheerful greeting, he died as happy as anyone can do with his family close around him, still smiling and telling funny stories until just half an before he passed away.
Our deepest condolences to Alison, Rebecca, Grandchildren & families.
Another one from Uminina 2006 with Marion Casey.
*******
ROY ACKRILL - 1925circa -16 SEPT 2007
Sad to hear the news about Roy Ackrill crossing the bar, it came too late for any of us to attend his funeral. He had been ill for several years a couple of our lads visited him recently in Hornsby Hospital when he collapsed on a journey north from his home in Batemans bay Southern NSW.
The last time I spoke to him six or seven months ago now he intimated that he was running on empty so to speak, the cancer had drained him.
Unfortunately none of us ever got to meet him, he never attended any of our functions as he was always too busy running his business in the early days.
On the one occasion I went to Bateman’s Bay to meet him he couldn’t make it.
Then in more recent times his illness slowed him down, on several occasions I spent quite some hours talking to him on the phone mostly about his war time adventures that read like something out of “Boys own Adventures”
From being a regular MN seaman he went as an TX124 (is that the correct term) engineer in the RN, ending up on MGBs in the Aegean from there to the SBS (Small boat service) a commando unit in that area and later against the Japanese in the East.
Altogether an amazing story, I asked him to write it all down but he said he couldn’t as he had signed the “Official secrets act” but would leave his story posthumously, I hope he has.
Roy Ackrill on the right when he called in to visit John & Mary Paulling on his way north to Brisbane last year
Roy was one the earliest TSVA members, his name is listed as a subscriber in the first 1993 print run of Roy Derham’s book ‘The Vindicatrix’ something that Roy Ackrill was always very proud of.
Terry hales
*******
Thomas Walker Hodgson 30/11/1930 - 13/02/2007
Tom was born in the Scotland road area of Liverpool, into a household that already held 19 brothers and sisters! And the odd cousin or two, Tom said “the Corned beef Sarnies used to run out before they got down to me”.
He did say that he had a happy childhood growing up in those crowded streets but he always wanted to go to sea not so much for a career but a gateway to a new life. Being in a 4 berth cabin and having three meals a day was a luxury to him he said.
Nevertheless he was always inordinately proud of his family and up to the end he took pleasure in being able to recite all his siblings names in chronological order.
Tom went of to join the Vindi and start his great escape in January of 1948.
Tom was ever a very practical man and used each event in his life to the best advantage that he could for himself and later his family.
This doctrine was evident in his sea time, ships plied the sea just to take Tom where he wanted to be and that place was Australia after his first taste of it in 1949.
Tom & Gloria –Tanunda 2005
After just 2 years at sea Tom made the life changing decision to jump ship in Sydney. Picked up by the Police shortly afterwards who told him, ’get away from Sydney, keep your nose clean for a year then apply to stay’, good advice that Tom took. He went to Melbourne got a job and a year later presented himself at the Dept of immigration there and became the proud owner of letter from the Commonwealth of Australia saying that the Dept of immigration had no objection to him residing in Australia.
In 1951 armed with this letter Tom settled down to a steady job on the Australian ships .
Until he made another “Life changing” decision in 1958 when on a train travelling from Sydney to Port Kembla to rejoin a ship he spied this very pretty young lady and never being of a faint heart he sat facing her on a wet seat next to a broken window that was letting the pouring rain in just to talk to her, insisting all the time that it was just fine sitting there. Gloria, the pretty young lady liked the look of Tom, but as Tom had to sail on his ship that day, thought it was but a “Brief Encounter”
Three months later Tom turned up at Gloria’s work place in Lithgow bearing gifts and determination. They were married in Sydney in 1961.
When Tom left the sea he took on an amazing challenge, by taking a stevedore’s job with Patricks at Port Kembla docks, a ‘Stevedore’ is responsible for getting as much work as possible out of the Wharfies and turning the ship around as fast as possible, so you see why it was a challenge!
That Tom was good at it and even survived it in those turbulent years of Australia’s industrial history into a happy retirement says a great deal about him.
He had a great sense of right & wrong and would not be swerved from it, ever.
He had a full and colourful Liverpudlian vocabulary but with it went a wonderful sense of humour.
He was in essence a product of his birth place, a typical ‘Scouser’ who knows where everything is in this world and which parts of it are HIS.
Our deepest sympathies to Gloria, sons Thomas, Sam, Timothy and their families.
*******
Herbert Wilkinson
Sadly I have to report that one of our Vindi Boys, Herbert Wilkinson, crossed the bar on 11 December, 2006. Bert, as he liked to be called, was born in
He signed on his first ship the Dominion Monarch as a laundry boy on 11 October completing two voyages on her. Two other ships he did wartime service on were the Samarinda and Empress of
Herbert & Isabella Wilkinson
His son, Brian, has written to me telling me that Bert was a very private person, only letting titbits of his WWII service out when documentaries were being shown on TV or WWII films; merely saying I was there when that was happening. Only six weeks before he died did he tell his family he was part of the firing party of a rocket launcher that fired twelve missiles at a time in support of troops going ashore from the ship he was on.
He swallowed the anchor in January1947 after completing a further three single voyages on the
I was serving on her as an assistant steward.
Not surprisingly I can't remember whether we ever rubbed shoulders.
The Queen of Bermuda, at the time was still a troop ship, bringing home 3000 lads at a time who had fought all the King's enemies, from varying parts of the world. Bert however, didn't adapt well to shore life, in spite of Isobella bearing him two sons, one in 1947 and Brian in 1948.
On January 19th 1951 he joined the Grenadier Guards where upon he was sent to
Bert eventually trained as a fridge mechanic wanting to get a trade certificate to improve his income.
He and Isobella followed their son Brian out to
Brian writes his dad had been in failing health for some years.
He leaves behind his widow, two sons, eight grandchildren, five of them in
On behalf of all our association Terry Hales as President sent a card to his widow expressing condolences to his family. A wreath was also sent from our NSW/ACT Association with a card bidding him “fair weather” on the longest voyage all us old sailors will make, crossing the bar for the last time. John Mears. ed.
*******
Vale - Albert Dawson
Sad to have to report the recent passing of another of our Vindi Boys;
Albert Dawson of Kerang in NW Victoria who passed away on the 13th March 2005.
He was born in 1928 in the Lancashire village of Bamber Bridge which still has a Village Green and lovely old ‘English’ pubs but is now besieged on all sides by motorways, the M6, M65 and the A6 the village lies between Blackburn & Preston.
I knew Albert quite well and never picked him as a Lancashire Lad like me, his “EEH By Gum” was masked by an Isle of Man accent where his family moved to fairly early in his life.
He joined the Vindi in 1944, like all our Vindi Boys of that era he couldn’t wait until he was 18 to join the armed forces he wanted to ‘go’ now!
His first ship was the “Condesa” - in 1946 on the "Asturias" he made his first visit to Melbourne where the fickle finger of fate laid down the path of his future life.
It was Easter Sunday Albert was stuck onboard as Gangway watchman
his day suddenly brightened up when he spied
three young ladies ‘promenading’ along the wharf!
Wilma and her two girl friends all down from the country around Kerang for the Easter Show had decided to have a daring change and go and see the ships.
Albert sped down the gangway with his best chat up line ready.
Result? Two dates before the ship sailed then a couple of visits each year with different ships, many letters till finally he could migrate as a ten pound Pom to Victoria, sponsored by Wilma’s father in the December of 1951.
Then he made the startling overnight change from Seaman to Wheat Farmer!
Wilma & Albert married in 1952 – building their family with a son and twin daughters and eight Grandchildren the eldest now being 24, to fill the family ranks.
The wheat farm was 14 miles out of Kerang in the Mallee, dry country where the yearly average of about one week's rain grows the annual crop.
Talking to Wilma today she told me they had a thunderstorm fairly recently, their first in 14 years!
Maureen & I first met Wilma & Albert at the first national Vindi get-together we organised in 1996 at Canberra - it was part of the larger Red Ensign annual National MN Memorial weekend.
You would never have taken Albert as a Pom he looked as though he was a son of that hard country like a big native hardwood tree.
Once when we went to visit them in Kerang he took us on a drive around the property it was scary!
I never knew a Holden Commodore sedan could do 100 mph over ploughed fields, leap from hillock to hillock and over small creeks and bounce so much without becoming airborne.
At the farm that by now the son was running, they had diversified with a large Fish Farm in the sheds, thousands of Trout in about 20 tanks.
And outside the sheds a giant combined harvester about as big as a WWII destroyer that they travelled the country in at 15mph, doing contract harvesting from QLD to SA.
Albert was a lovely man with a wonderful story of a wonderful life to tell.
Everyone he touched will sadly miss him, our deepest sympathies to all his family and friends.
Terry Hales Saturday July 2005
*******
Ron who died in December 2005 is seen here at the unveiling of the MN memorial plaque at the Garden of Remembrance in the grounds of the Heidleberg Repat hospital in Melbourne.
Ron was born in 1924 at Handsworth near West Bromwich. He joined the Vindi in 1941and served in the MN throughout the war and for a few years after.
Unfortunately I don't know a great deal about his early life despite visiting him twice in April of last year.
He married in the UK in the 50s and has children & grandchildren there, but he came out to Australia in 1972 by himself. He had a number of jobs; he worked for a time at the Crest Hotel in Kings Cross later settling in Melbourne becoming a Tram Driver on Melbourne's famous Trams.
Ron loved tram driving it gave him a job he liked to do and the daily opportunity to chat to lots and lots of people.
About 1981 he fell in love with his ‘Clippie’ Bonnie, they became inseparable lifelong partners.
He was always active on the ex-MN front being a member of RSL MN Sub branches and other ex-service organisations doing his best to promote ex-MN matters.
He tried for a year or two to get a Victorian Vindi Branch going but it wasn’t to be the embryo group met once or twice then just faded away.
By this time his beloved Bonnie was ill and needed lots of care and Ron devoted most of his time being her carer but during this time he got involved with Garden of Remembrance at the hospital and helped to get the MN memorial erected there.
His picture is also on one of the hundreds of small glass panes in the remembrance screen that shields the garden. He had got to know the artist making the screen and I suppose she couldn’t resist that beard of his for the Merchant Seamen’s window.
Ron was well known in the neighbourhood, he liked to walk to the shops everyday and talk to everyone. For years he was the very popular Father Christmas (that beard again) at the nearby McCloud shopping centre. Many of the people from the shops came to his funeral and his name is to be inscribed into a Flagstone in the forecourt of the mall, which gives you a warm feeling in the heart to know that someone can be so well respected, just for being happy and being nice.
Ron liked his computer but it was getting old and slow and on Ron’s last day Sunday the 18th. of December some of Bonnie’s Grandkids were playing on the computer and complained to Ron that the old computer was dying, Ron retorted ‘Bloody computers I’m going for a lie down” he went into the bedroom, the kids heard him fall and ran in but he had passed away.
As Bonnie said when I phoned her today
“ he was always a lucky blighter, right to the end.”
Vale MIKE NORFOLK
It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Mike Norfolk R395233 of Levin New Zealand.
Mike came from Leigh on Sea and was at the Vindi in 1947 (catering).
His first ship was the MV Brittany (Royal Mail).
After service at sea, then in the army, Mike and his family emigrate
