16/12/1959 - 12/01/1960

I joined the Iberia In December 1959 aged just16 straight from the training school in Gravesend and was very lucky to joined at this time because this was a 5 month world cruise and what an exciting time for a young lad to travel the world as I did . I joined as a bellboy and worked in several areas on the ship and really enjoyed it all . Later I sailed on Iberia’s sister ship the Arcadia and also did the final two trips on the Carthage before she was scrapped in 1961 . What a happy time of my life that I will never forget .

My mother and I travelled on the Iberia from Tilbury to Adelaide arriving January 1960, sharing a cabin with Poppy and Janice Cole and two others. My father was flown out to Australia by the Australian government to work on the Woomera Rocket Range and he met us at Outer Harbour in Adelaide. We lived in the Outback for five years and I went to school and started work there. We returned to the UK on the Orcades. Exciting ports of call and all before mass tourism and when ships looked like ships !