What is a Ships Electrician?
Between the innocence of infancy and the recklessness of adultery comes that unique specimen of humanity known as a Ships Electrician.
They can be found in Bars, in Arguments, in Bed, in Debt, in Passenger Accommodation and Intoxication.
They are Tall, Short, Fat, Thin, Dark, Fair but never normal.
Girls love them, Towns tolerate them, Shipping Companies support them and Calabooses all over the world provide them with overnight shelter.
They dislike Ships Food, Chief Engineers, Writing Letters, Sailing on Saturdays, the Old Man's Inspection, Work and Dry Ships.
They like Receiving Mail, Pay off Day, Nude Pin Ups, Sympathy, Complaining and plenty of Beer.
A Ships Electrician secret ambition is to change places with the Owner for just one trip, to own a Brewery and to be loved by everyone in the World.
His interests are Women, Girls, Females and the Opposite Sex.
A Ships Electrician is Sir Galahad in a Japanese Brothel, a Psychoanalyst with Readers Digest on the table, Don Quixote with a Discharge Book, and the Saviour of Mankind with his back teeth awash, Valentino with a Fiver in his pocket and Democracy personified in a Red Chinese prison cell.
No one else can cram into his back pocket a photo of his Wife or Girlfriend, 3 Unanswered Letters, a Comb, crushed packet of smokes, a Train Ticket, what is left of his Payoff and the odd Cruzeiro, Escudo, Peseta, Dollar and Franc.
A Ships Electrician is a Provider in War and a Parasite in Peace. No one is subjected to so much Abuse, wrongly accused, so often misunderstood by so many.
He has the patience of Job, the honesty of a Fool and the heaven sent ability to laugh at himself. He has the Energy of a Tortoise, Brains of an Idiot, Yarns of an Old Seadog and the Slyness of a Fox.
When he returns home from a long voyage, no one else but a Ships Electrician can create such an atmosphere of suspense and longing as he walks through the door with those magic words on his lips:
"Hello Love, I'm Home!"
The next line to this prose that never failed to follow which is classic;
"Hello Darling ...... When are you going back?"