Peter Hedley on Transport

Well my apprenticeship finished when I was 21, and then I was a Draftsman for two years. As I said earlier, I had made up my mind that I was going to go to sea to further my marine engineering, rather than go into the National Service.

Ironically, I’d made all my plans and been accepted at an interview with the Orient Line, who were in London and that was the July and August of 1960. In the November of 1960 they finished National Service.

But we knew this was going to happen, but I’d made my plans so, and I’m pleased that I went off to sea and furthered my career. Unfortunately, John Samuel Whites, in the next five or six years, started to decline. They were bought out by Elliott’s and asset stripped and slowly they folded up completely, so I’d made the right decision to go to sea, as a lot of other apprentices were doing.