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One night the 4th engineer and I took a trip up to Perth, the train service was excellent , and we got there early in the evening. It was quite spectacular, they call it the City of Light and it is easy to see why. The street and road lighting was very bright, they had seemed to conquer darkness. All the street's were bright and airy and the whole place seemed brand new. . The place was also very English, this was a town favoured by the immigrants from the UK.
Geordie and I had a good stroll around the town centre to get a feel of the place, it was spotless, no litter or graffiti, it was almost like a film set. We had a couple of beers and got talking to a man who had come down in the early fifties. He said it had been hard to start with , but the Government had made things easier as time went on and he now had his own house and all of his family were here with him. He impressed me ,and I gave thought to the idea of doing the same…………but life has a way making you miss a turn.
We found out from some guy’s that the best place to go for a good time was a club quite near to where we were. You had to take your own drinks ,which you had to put behind the bar,your bottle was labelled with your name ,and you went to the bar and asked for your drinks as ,and when, you needed them. They sold soft drinks and mixers so it seemed like an ordinary pub.
The place was packed and you could hardly move at the bar,it was about six deep around it and ,as I was making way ,slowly, to the counter, I had to give way to a man coming from the bar with an armful of glasses. We looked at each other and shook our heads in disbelief. This was a man I had shared a drink with in Dakar last November. He had been in one of the native bars that we had resorted to after the snotty reception we had got in one of the swish town centre bars.
Lloyd Warrilow was his name ,he invited Geordie and me to come to his table when we were served. The night turned out to be golden. There was Beatles tribute band on stage and they were quite good, one of the men at our table was their manager, a young Greek guy, he had a beautiful young English girlfriend who was from Dagenham. She was very chatty and came and sat by Geordie and me. We were someone from “home” and she was so full of questions. Her parent’s had brought her here just 10 months ago and she was more than homesick. She had’nt settled down here. She was a beauty, as was her sister, and Geordie and I felt so awkward ,because her conversation was all about her boy friend back in Dagenham; his name was Brian too. It was hard to engage her Greek boyfriend in conversation because he was forever getting up to greet people, he seemed a very popular guy. Conversation with Lloyd was useless because of the noise, a good noise, but bad for general conversation. Soon it was time to head back to Fremantle and the girls said that they would like to see our ship, the boyfriend had to see to the band and said he would run us down there if we could wait while he wrapped things up. He had a nice big car, American of course, but he seemed as though he had a tad too much to drink.
He got us back to the Demeterton without any mishaps, but the girls were a bit tiddly. We went up to Geordies cabin because he had some cold beers in his fridge. Geordie took them up to the bow’s and into the engine room and then came back to his cabin . We were sitting around supping some beer when the Greeks girl whispered to me that she would like to see my cabin. We slipped away at the first opportunity and went to my lonely room. When we got there she pulled me to her and gave me a deep and lingering kiss ,and then burst out crying. I was’nt her Brian, he was 12 thousand miles away in Dagenham. She was inconsolable and very,very drunk. She wanted to stay in my cabin and I was beginning to get concerned for her. I was trying to get her on to her feet when her sister arrived. With her help ,I managed to get her walking towards the gangway;her boysfriend was standing at the top of the gangway with Geordie ,when we hove into view he made his way down to the car. Very unsteadily. When the sister and I managed to get the homesick one near the gangway ,she threw herself down on the deck and started screaming “ I want my Brian”, not me ,the guy in Dagenham. She was threshing about so much that she had almost uncovered herself and it was all we could do to preserve what modesty she had left. Her sister spoke softly to her and she gradually calmed down enough for us to take her to the quay. Her Greek boyfriend was looking none too happy with life when they drove off.
Now ,the guy who jumped overboard in Nauru,was another Geordie, he could pull the girls,well not really,they flocked to him. He asked me if I fancied a double date, his girl had a car and wanted to go to a drive in movie; she had a mate and wanted me to make up a foursome. I told him to book me in.
Next night we arrived at our rendezvous and were picked up……the girls were in a Riley Elf, a sort of tarted up Mini. I had to sit in the back with this huge farmers daughter. She had frizzy ginger hair and a mass of freckles. Her hands were like great big hams and her arms were very muscular. She had a very nice voice and was very attentive to my needs. We got to the drive in ,got speakered up and tried to watch the movie. I say tried ,but ,as soon as the film rolled ,big ginger got me in a Boston Crab and proceeded to suck the mouth off me . She had opened her blouse and got my arms around her back ,which was lumpy and had the texture of weathered leather. I was very grateful that we were in a mini car, gawd knows what might have happened if she had had an ordinary saloon.
I did meet a lovely girl there before we sailed, she was a nurse and had a very pleasant nature. She would have made an ideal girl friend but time was not on our side ,we were bound for South Africa and pastures new.
Below is Terry ,the Nurse from Fremantle
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