Hi guys!

[Jamie Gilbert]

Hi guys!

I'll be starting in September at Warsash doing the FD Deck Cadetship with SSTG for P&O ferries!
Any other P&O ferries cadets/ex-cadets who can give some info about working for the company?

Cheers,

Jamie

[endure]

Ah! The men of the Merchant Navy, the officers of the Royal Navy and the gentlemen of the P&O. I'll get me coat...

Welcome!

[Clanky]

Endure, having been a P&O Cruises cadet and junior officer, my ambition in life was to stay at sea long enough to see them cease to exist.

Thankfully now they exist in name only with different parts of the group being sold off and only used as a name to trade, it would nice to see even the name disappear as an acknowledgement of the irreparable harm done to the British merchant navy by Geoffrey Sterling, but time is running out before I finally hang up my shifter.

[endure]

Pretty much after my time. I was at the rough end of the company anyway - gas boats and bulkers. I enjoyed working for them a lot and was treated really well apart from the Gambhira - a ship built for the North Atlantic with the Sparkie's cabin attached to the funnel casing. Lovely and toasty in the Atlantic. Sold by its original Spanish farmers co-operative owners to P&O who thought it would be a good idea to use it on the Fujairah to India run. A little too toasty in the Gulf.

[Midge]

My friends dad was ex P&O I found out on Friday night, must have been 50 years ago I would imagine, he was an engineer, and they did 8 month trips in his day. He got asked to move to another ship mid a stint to something refrigerated as they were short the ship he left got T boned a few days later, and he lost a friend. Sorry I can't recall the name if it. Seemed from what he was saying shipping in those days P&O it was mainly all British.

I never knew he had been to sea as I'd only ever know him as an aircraft engineer.

[endure]

My first trip with BP was 7 months. Average trips with the various companies I worked for were between 4 and 6 months and usually 2 on 1 off. In P&O Bulk we had all British officers. The crew were usually Pakistani and the catering staff Goanese.

I've never sailed on a ship that wasn't all British Officers. I've sailed with British, Pakistani/Indian/Goanese, Barbadian and Filipino crews. Gotta love the Filipinos.