Twenty Years Before the Antenna Mast

Why did I become a Radio Officer in the Merchant Navy? After all, I had no connections to the sea and nobody in my family even my distant relatives had ever lived a life on the waves.

I suppose it all started when I began working at a radio and TV repair shop on the weekends to earn a few extra pennies of pocket money. At the time I knew that I wanted a Technical job of some sort and had vague thoughts about joining the Royal Air Force or Royal Navy. Both have a lot of high-tech equipment, excellent training as well as allowing one to travel around a bit and maybe see the world.

I was not sure if I could settle for the discipline and regimentation both services are famous for. I had never even thought of the Merchant Navy, and never knew there were such things as Radio Officers at the time. It's not something that was (and still isn't) advertised very much. If anything, the Merchant Navy had a rather sordid public image despite its heroic efforts during the 2nd World War. Mental pictures of drunken sailors, rough callous officers, and men who had one or more girls in every port were far more frequent than those of the truth, which was that of a hard working, dedicated band of highly skilled people. Just how hard working and dedicated they really are, I only found out when I myself became one.

The part time job was on Saturdays, working at Mildemay Electronics, a small radio and TV shop in Chelmsford: repairing radios, TV's, electric irons and other assorted household gear. It was very convenient, being just around the corner from where I lived. My father knew the owner (as he was a frequent customer) so it was not too difficult to convince him to give me a weekend job. The shop had a repair engineer working full time called Derek Chard and naturally I got to know him as we worked together all day in the workshop. He was about 26 years old, had recently left the sea having got married, and had not wanted to continue his sea going career. He was an ex Radio Officer. We became good friends, and I used to spend quite a bit of time with him, experimenting, constructing various electronic gadgets and making radio control systems for model boats. He explained some of the work he had done at sea, and the places he had visited. This awoke an intense interest in me, and I resolved to try in that direction.

A few inquiries later, at the famous Marconi Marine Company (just up the road), showed that they would only be too pleased to employ me once I became qualified. It seemed they were looking for likely people to expand their team of Radio Officers. I was only 14 years old at that point, but now had a firm goal in mind. As I needed Science and Math's "O" level GCE qualifications to start the studies, I left the Blessed John Payne School when I was 15, as they did not offer all the necessary subjects (no Science GCE was offered at that time).

I took a "further studies" course at Braintree College of Further Education culminating in 4 GCE "O" levels after two years. They were awarded in English, Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. The Chemistry Master implored me to take up chemistry and to study further for my "A" levels, as he thought I was a "natural" and consistently got 95 percent or more in his exams. Although I was interested in Chemistry, and enjoyed it, I desperately wanted to travel and was sure that a job as a Marine Radio Officer was what I wanted. Even at this point I was very interested in radio communications and electronics. One of the instructors was a radio amateur G3MUL, and with his encouragement we started a small radio club at the college, based in the physics lab. We even operated a small exhibition station for the College at its open day. When I had my GCE's safely under my belt, I left the Braintree College and enrolled at Dagenham Technical College in their MRO (Marine Radio Officers) Course.