Thread: Look after your house elf!

Originally Posted by prelude

I was thinking about the misses But then again, she calls herself karma's little helper so I guess it's close but no sigar.

In any case, i svensk: God jul!

-P

I Dansk, Glaedlig Jul og Godt Nytaar.

Following on from the above Woollahra ship post, how is this for a coincidence?

The reason we came to have the Swedish friends was as follows & I just know you are busting your balls to know.

When I was a Service Manager for a Refrigeration firm we were tasked with inspecting & checking over a new LUKE Refrigeration Clipon Refrigeration Sysetm ( My co. were the Agents here for this concept) that was to be taken back to Sweden for trials.
This system had been delivered to the Northern most wharf at Adelaide's Outer Harbour for us. It was designed to be fitted to the end of an insulated container which had porthole like holes in the end & this thing clipped on over the holes & recirculated the cold air. It also saved tying up a Refrigerated Container when carrying general cargo, the clip on was unclipped, the holes blocked with plugs & away she went. The clips were in fact very heavy gauge galvanised over centre clamps. They were apparently Purchased for Overseas Containers Ltd. OCL.

While looking it over, two blokes from the ship strolled over to introduce themselves. The big guy was the Chief Engineer named Gusta/Gosta & the 2nd bloke was the ship's electrician named Noel, an Aussie then based in Brisbane.

There was something familiar about the sparky & as a little time went on it hit me like a Besser Block. He was the sparky that had wired my Uncle Bob's new house at Vale Park in SA & was a long time mate of Unc.

. He had packed that in & taken this job on-board ship. After I had introduced myself he said that there had thought there was something familiar about me as well, as I used to help with pulling wires through cavities, mixing a bit of concrete etc etc etc but that was about 1957 & this ship day was aprox. 20 odd years later. FFS!

Anyway back to the ship for coffee & a long chat. Nice quarters they had too.

Whenever the ship was visiting Adelaide we all caught up & the Chief just loved going to an Orchardist friend's property at Blackwood in the Southern Adelaide Hills & catching Yabbies in his dam as these were a most sought after delicacy on board when served with some sort of Dill mayo & knackbrod. They would visit the dam each visit.

I suppose we saw them about 5 times before the Chief retired & the ship was sold off & we never saw her again.

When Noel went on leave I was asked if I could get time off from from my work to fill in as Ship's sparky for a trip up to Cairns but my own boss said a resounding NO. Just as well I suppose as the young bloke that did fill in stayed with the Co for a few years but he was single.

So as I said ^^^ "how is this for a coincidence?" I guess they have all passed on by now. Unc has.

Vol. 21 No. 10 (23 May 1969) TROVE.