Crew Ephemera
This is the second page that offers a selection of various pieces of official ephemera that would have been gathered or used by crew members along the way.
The Caronia Benevolent Fund
Along with most liners with sufficient crew members to support it, there was a Benevolent Fund set up to offer financial assistance if a member was off sick. I'm indebted to Len Danson for providing his membership card, seen below.
Caronia Benevolent Fund Cover / Page 1
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[Images: Peter Stevens Collection]
Caronia Benevolent Fund Page 2 / Cover rear
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[Images: Peter Stevens Collection]
Crew Landing Permit for USA
[Image: Peter Stevens Collection]
[Image: Peter Stevens Collection]
Above and left are the face and part of the obverse side of a Crew Landing Permit for use in the USA. On Caronia's travels it would have been required in places like Honolulu, as seen, Pago Pago and St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.
By the time I had joined Caronia, the immigration process on first arrival in New York, in July 1964, was not a happy experience!
NavBarThis was the only port in the World where we, as crew members, were made to line-up and have our fingerprints taken, and also provide a passport size photograph for it to be laminated into a credit-card sized pass before we could go ashore for the first time in the USA. Never before, nor since, have I been made to provide finger-prints for anything! Land of the free? Pah!
Crew Landing Permit for Trinidad 1956
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[Images: Peter Stevens Collection]
Crew Landing Permit for Singapore 1956
Patricia Sparks’ Crew Pass for Singapore in 1956
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[Images: Peter Stevens Collection]
[All Images: Peter Stevens Collection]
Crew Landing Permit for Naples
Patricia Sparks’ Crew Pass for Naples in 1956
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[Images: Peter Stevens Collection]
Crew Shore Cards
By the mid-1960s a general Shore Card was issued to the crew. It was for use in every port, rather than selectively. It also served a different purpose. Instead of being taken ashore, it was to be left in a purpose-built box at the gangway on the point of going ashore, then collected upon your return.
At the time of sailing, any uncollected card would indicate someone being left behind. Any shore-leave sanction was enforced by calling in your Shore Card. However, there was a flaw in that system. It didn't take into account that “wrong-uns” might purloin the use of another's card to go ashore anyway.
This happened to me in Malta. At an ungodly hour, not long after sailing, I'm unceremoniously escorted from my bunk up to the Bridge by a Master-at-Arms, where the Staff Captain enquires how it was possible that my shore card was in his possession. Luckily, I was his Commis on that trip and he readily acknowledged it was his own Tiger who'd enjoyed some shore leave that day, not me.
There were strict protection rules for Junior Ratings in those days, so I was nevertheless confronted with a daunting prospect of my parents being informed of my “desertion” from the ship at Malta. My card had been stolen from my locker while I was on duty.
Paying-Off Sheets
Frank Hughes writes…
Thought this would be of some interest! One of my Caronia Paying-off Slips for the period December
1952 to June 1953. I really don't know how I would manage on £18 - 4 shillings and 6 pence after
working for 6 months these days!!
Southampton Dock Exit Pass
Among the most looked-forward to documents to obtain on return to the UK was your dock exit pass. It was regarded almost as a “freedom certificate” and you couldn't wait to reach the policeman at the dock gates to redeem it.
This piece of ephemera is bound to evoke a story from anyone in the Merchant Navy who ever signed-off a ship at Southampton.