Ships Crew Page 2

This story was sent to me by Paul Cope about "Fred and the door."

Your Dad and myself had a habit of wandering around the ship in the afternoons if we were not busy in our cabins, partly for exercise partly to ease the boredom and to find people to "wind up" I remember this day well, we had been down in the engine room annoying the 4th engineer ,we went to the Radar Room but no one was about, at the other end of the alleyway under the bridge was this door I think it must have been a gun platform in days gone by. Anyway I said "Fred I have not been out there for couple of years shall we take a look", your Dad said ok as he'd never been out there. As I opened the door the hinges which were rusted thru fell off, and I was left holding the door. Being a quick thinker in those days I said "Fred hold this door a minute" and whipped out a cheap and nasty kodak camera which was in my pocket, Fred entered the spirit of the occasion by posing. I took the shot and said to him "if you tell anyone I broke the door I will just say it was you and show them the foto" at that we both fell about laughing laid the door on the deck and beat a hasty retreat!

Days later due to a complaint from one of the techs about the draft in the radar room Angus Mcleod the bosun tied the door in place with rope. The next day I was passing the wardroom, the door was open, and Capt Norman Fraser was there talking to Stuart Norwell 1st mate, and I overheard the old man say, "no one knows who did it but I bet it was one of those 3 buggers Sleigh, Van Dyke or Paul Cope, my ears went red as I made a run for it!

Danny Sleigh studying in Reporter's balloon shed in 1972