“I GREW up in Newport, just over the bridge. Over Somerton Bridge and by the Black Horse. Born there in 1947, worst winter on record or something like that. I turn 70 in a few weeks, on March 30.

My childhood was alright I guess, it was pretty austere I suppose by comparison today. There was not a great deal of work around in the 50s. I was the only one in my family that didn’t pass the 11 plus. Both my sisters went to the grammar school and my older brother went too. I didn’t though – I went to Corporation Road. I went to Lliswerry Junior School then St Andrew’s Secondary School on Corporation Road.

It was a different time I guess, it was much stricter as well. You learnt, because if you didn’t you got hit. It was pretty normal for the time. You get used to what you are brought up with. It was the same for everybody so I didn’t see it as anything different or anything special or anything bad.

When I got out of school I took an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic at the Royal Oak which is a Tesco now. I served my apprenticeship on lorries mainly, large engines and things. I was one of those kids that was good at taking things apart but I wasn’t always sure I was good at putting them back together.

I only went to sea when I was going for one trip. I wanted to see big engines. It was what you call a poles piston engine. It was about 40 or 50 foot high. I remember my first trip, I went down to Cuba. I actually joined in France. For a Newport boy who’d never been away, never been on a plane, it was probably London that was the furthest I had been until then.

I got off the plane, you couldn’t fly directly to where the ship was so you had to changeover, and two Scot guys came up to me. They said ‘is your name Alan?’ and they said ‘we’re joining with you’. They were two other engineers I didn’t know about. They took me on the drink and we missed the plane, we had to catch a train. That was my first introduction to the Merchant Navy.

I always say I spent the first four days at sea in the Merchant Navy with a hangover and I spent the next five being sea-sick.

At the time when I was doing my apprenticeship there were two or three guys who worked with different companies who had given it (going on a ship and working) a try. Some of them had gone just to see what it was like – like me, to have a look and call it a day. It sounded good and if I’m honest I did take to it.

I used to say when I was young that I used to think it was a nice mixture of having to use your head and your hands. It wasn’t all brain work and it wasn’t all hands.

You used to have a nice mixture of when you could use your head, when you could use your head about how you run plant how you did things and you had to physically do them as well as an engineer.

I stuck at it for nearly 35 years so I can say I took to it.

My first trip was to Cuba with a company called AFL Line but they were actually owned by Tate and Lyle, the sugar company. They had molasses refineries down there. We came back from Cuba, and then off to Sweden, Holland and down to the Canaries.

It was a regular run to Cuba, I did three of those. The next trip I joined in Singapore, we were doing Singapore and Japan and Korea and up the Persian Gulf. It was quite a big trip. We brought it home to dry dock so we came home from Korea to Singapore, Persian Gulf, Kharg Island, and ended up in what’s now Iran I think. Then out of there down into Durban in South Africa, up to Nigeria, then Rotterdam and North Shields.

I was 22 when I started going on the ships. I was a little bit old probably. Most people finished their apprenticeships at 21 and went off to sea. I knew quite quickly I was going to stay there. I thought well I’m going to do my tickets if I’m going to stay here and I’m going to become professional.

A lot of the time engineers didn’t become proper professionals, they became professional thirds, on merit in those days. You used to get to third engineer by your skill and your knowledge of the job, but to get to second engineer or chief engineer officer you had to get the certificates you know. So that’s what I did.

I sailed with Mobil who were an American company, so we had multi-flag ships, what you ended up doing was getting different certificates. It took a long time to get them, two or three years at least.

So when you had all these different ships with all these different flags you had to get the certificate of their state. Once you got a British certificate, though, they used to give you the others.

In my last years I was doing project engineering, still for Mobil, and I worked in the states in Houston for eight or nine months. I worked in Singapore for a couple of months as well when we were doing a conversion of a ship and we converted to store the oil as well.

My last years were pretty interesting, I worked in the office in Houston and in Singapore as well. I finished off with a couple of months in West Africa as well. That’s the Merchant Navy I guess.

I’m probably busier now than I’ve ever been because now I’m a chairman of two school governing bodies in Newport, I also chair the Newport Association of School Governors in Newport which puts us on to Governors Wales, so I’m actually on the executive of Governors Wales. I’m quite busy in education and other stuff.

I have plenty to do. I am also a harbour commissioner and chair of the Merchant Navy Association in Newport. We support people and commemorate people who were lost when they were serving.

I didn’t know there was such a thing as the Merchant Navy Association. I had been retired two or three years and I contacted the then chairman. We did presentations to schools and things about the Merchant Navy. We go down on Remembrance Day and talk to the children about what it’s about and do a lot of things. It’s nice to remember those in the navy and remind people about them.”