CATHERINGTON 100 LIVES – A Sailor’s Life for me? – Adrian Harbidge 1970-73

SUNDAY 28th April 2024,
1915 for a 1930 START
CATHERINGTON CHURCH HALL

ENTRY ON THE DOOR £2.00 per person.

Despite becoming Archdeacon of Bournemouth, a member of General Synod for 11 years, taking part in Lord Mountbatten’s funeral and being secretary to CVRA, any press statement about me always begins with “Former Ship’s Purser, Adrian Harbidge ……”.

Three years with Elder Dempster Lines allowed me to see ports on the West Coast of Africa and on the East Coast of America. The Biafran War had only finished a few months earlier, the Congo War in 1967 and a coup in Ghana the day before we docked – however, you’ll be surprised to learn which was the most dangerous port we visited.

A whirlpool too dangerous for an ocean-going liner to cross, the footprints where Jesus landed after the Ascension and shaking hands with Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson – all seemed part of everyday life at sea. What was more difficult to accept was the reason for pilfering British soap from the cargo, haggling over the price of a radio in New York’s equivalent of Curry’s and learning to dance uphill while the ship was rolling!