ID: WW01_481 / Winifred Hone

TitleCaptain Goulandris - Winifred Hone memoirs
AbstractAttempted piracy in the River Blackwater. One ship, the ST GEORGE, was owned by the Goulandris brothers, one brother in command. The other brother wanted to get rid of him as he considered him too old, but this was not considered as a legitimate grievance by Captain Goulandris. His brother was quite friendly towards him when the ST GEORGE was laid up in the Blackwater, at the same time tried to get rid of him by getting some fishermen from Tollesbury to board the ship and forcibly remove him, but somebody gave the game away. When they arrived in the dark to do the job the Captain was waiting for them with a gun and two gallons of petrol and they quickly disappeared into the darkness of the night.

The Captain knew who they were and when he came ashore and met them in the Club he approached calmly and tolerantly and said "Never do that again or you burn". He was very kind to his men as they were of his nationality also very amusing. He would come into the Club and before he had hardly got his head in the door would say "missus I very hungry, what you got to eat?" Whatever he was offered he always wanted pork chops and big white beans. On another occasion after he had made a journey to London, he had to stay ashore as the duty boat left early. We could not put him up and he had to get a bed in the village. He was banging on the back door at about 6 o'clock in the morning saying "missus let me in I bloody cold all night". One week he seemed to only eat nuts and apparently it was the Greek Holy week he journeyed to Colchester and returned with enormous parcels of food saying "Christ he rise and tomorrow we feast". He had courage and determination and was the first ship to leave with a cargo of wood for Russia during that depression, the piracy didn't disrupt International Relations.

Notes
This probably relates to ST GEORGE that was laid up in River December 1957 to May 1958. See Laid up ships for more details.

AuthorWinifred Hone
Publishedc1969
SourceMersea Museum / Wendy Brady
IDWW01_481