CHAIRMAN Pam Andrews welcomed 55 members to the June meeting. There were thirteen apologies and two visitors.

Treasurer, Christine Clayton informed the members that charity now stood at £1,330 and of that £477 had been raised at the May quiz evening.

Social secretary, Mavis Siswick reported that there were no places left for the trip on June 17 to Whitby. She reminded members that the coach would leave Wetherby at 9am.

Pam Andrews, chairman thanked all those involved with the May quiz announcing that it had been a very successful evening. In particular, she thanked Wendy Etherington, Ellen Sharp and Margaret Crookes for helping out on the evening. She also sent thanks to Terry Burns and his team for not running the quiz but for organising the venue.

Pam reminded members of the invite from The Harrogate Ladies Spa to their Summer Luncheon on August 14. Anyone interested in attending should notify a committee member.

Finally before introducing the guest speaker for the afternoon, Pam reminded members that the meeting on July 8 would be the AGM. Only paid members can attend, unfortunately, visitors are not allowed. Members were asked to bring a wine glass and spoon for the refreshments.

Guest speaker, Paul Gosling was then introduced to the members. His talk “Tales from Fifty Countries” was based on his experiences as a merchant seaman but, as he explained in the time given, he could not possibly talk about all the countries that he visited. For his talk today he would concentrate on his time as an apprentice learning the job in the 1950’s.

As a teenager growing up in Morecambe he witnessed many ships coming and going and decided that he wanted to travel and see the world. As a grammar school boy he knew that he would be expected to go onto university, but knew that this would not be the life for him. Instead he informed his headmaster that he intended to apply to the Royal Navel College at Dartmouth, only to be told that since his father was a grocer he stood no chance of gaining entry!

Instead he went off to college and joined the British Tanker Company. Aged 18 he joined his first ship at Newcastle as one of four apprentices. It was his first time away from home and family and as a very naive young man his first tour took him around the Mediterranean where he has many eye opening experiences. In Greece he hid in a ladies toilet when guns became involved in an argument about football teams, in Turkey he saw great poverty and he witnessed first hand the severity of life in the Communist states.

Working on many types of boats including tramp ships and luxury cruisers he visited many counties. In 1956 he was on one of the last four ships to get through the Suez Canal before it closed during the war. Working for Wireless and Cable took him to the South Atlantic where the ship was engaged in repairing telephone cables anywhere between Rio de Janeiro and the West African coast.