Paul Mann: writer of queer merchant seafarer history

 P&O purser Paul Mann (1938-2017) is overlooked, but was the best writer of queer merchant maritime fiction in the UK. Literary, he was kind of latterday gay James Hanley, but far more explicit - and Hemingwayesque.

Interestingly, he was not into campery and liked to write about tenderness and complexity. You got the impression he'd read a lot of Graham Greene; there was such profundity in his works. 

I'm writing about him because I'm shocked to find that experts on queer maritime life don't know about him. He deserves attention. I got to know him remotely c.2005, when we were talking about what role he might play in the forthcoming Hello Sailor exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum. By email he answered some questions - more than there is space for here. We became friends and I liked him.

Paul Brain Devanney Mann didn't get the scale of attention he deserved, because he was not published by a large mainstream company but by a small gay company, Paradise Press (from whose website he is now absent. See logo). Also he hated doing promotional work about his publications.

HIS BOOKS 

Both novels and short stories deal with complex relationships on ship. In most cases the main protagonist - sometimes the narrator - is a mature and critical purser who is not out. The backgrounds are exotic. But the richness lies in this totally other story of gay life on merchant ships, especially cargo ships. Mann's sociological awareness reveals a different life to that of stewards enjoying the flamboyant floating 'gay heavens': passenger ships and cruise vessels. It's also very little like closeted Royal Navy life.

• The Queer Commando, 2001, 2006
• Seaman’s Mission, 2005, 2006
• Nailing Frank, 2005     
• Stowaway, 2006
• The Last Cargo Ship, 2008
• The Queer Businessman, 2011
• George's Edited Journal, 2011
• The Open Season for Mongooses, 2014

 

TIMELINE

1938. Born. Grew up in Poole, Dorset, and attended Poole Grammar School

C 1957-1959. Was one of the final few young men required to do National Service. He had wanted to join Royal Navy but was put in the Royal Marines. Served with 42 Commando based as Bickleigh Camp near Plymouth. In August 1957 he was disqualified from driving for riding a motorbike while very drunk. There is no mention of him serving abroad, but this was the time that troops were readying in the 1958 Suez crisis. 

He said “As a Corporal, if you knew someone was gay or lesbian, you, it was your duty to report it to the top so I never, I just closed my eyes to it, because I just didn’t feel it was my duty to do that. Many lesbians and gays had horrible experiences when their sexuality was brought to the attention of the military authorities.” It sounds like he was not out, even to himself, at that point. The Queer Commando is his main novel referring to that period.  

C 1960. Went out to Toronto and worked as an assistant accountant in a bank. The experience probably got him the desired position as purser for the British India Steam Navigation Company, later part of P&O.

C1961-1970s. His different ships include the Waroonga to Australia, an oil tanker circumnavigating the world (probably the Quiloa), and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Sir Galahad, where his exotic ports included the British Virgin Islands, Borneo, and Bangkok before the advent of mass tourists. His visits to Singapore's iconic Bugis Street are included in some of the novels. BISN diversified into educational cruises and he ’grew to loathe cocktail parties and ritual dining.’ Also the routes were limited.

1970s. He left the sea and spent some time collecting ’tickets on a chain ferry that clanked a three-minute transit from Sandbanks to Shell Bay, in Dorset … the gateway to a notorious nudist beach.’

1980s. At some point he began seeking publication for his writing, initially small pieces. He may have done a University of the Third Age creative writing course, and been involved in the Gay Authors’ Workshop (begun in 1978). 

His numerous publications included the Royal Marines Historical Society’s Sheet Anchor, Southern Arts publications, the Manchester Evening News, Nautical Magazine, Gay Men’s Press, Third House (the University of the Third Age magazine) and The Marine Society’s newsletter The Seafarer. He is said to have won prizes for writing but few are now traceable.

In the early 21st century he said of himself that he ‘packed bread in Tesco’s where he lasted one week. Now he dusts and takes the dog out. He is a member of 42 Commando Association’ (which met annually after 2001).

2001-2014. His books were published by Paradise Press, and Paradise Press North (he lived in Manchester for a time, where it was also based). PP had been founded in 1991 and published the works of the Gay Authors’ Workshop members. 

He was very positively reviewed by some prestigious reviewers such as Christopher Isherwood. His success is likely to have been aided by the new climate created by the 1999 TV series Queer as Folk.

2017. Died in Sussex age 79.

LGBT+ ATTITUDES

In my papers I found the following from 2006, which I think are some summarising notes I wrote after a conversation. I apologise if they are someone else's material.

~ Paul thinks that perhaps some homosexuals thought that life at sea was free and easy, and you could come and go as you pleased. 

~ Paul found gays who were ‘overtly camp’ a real turn-off. "I am comfortable with effeminate men, but not those who push ‘camp’ in others' faces and think they are funny. It’s like watching a bad pantomime!”

~ Eventually Paul realised ...  "straight men didn’t have to go around proclaiming their straightness, so why should I have to tell everyone I was gay?"

 Used copies of Mann's books can still be found via internet bookshops. He would be an  ideal focus for someone looking to do a thesis on queer maritime fiction of the 1960s and 70s

Maritime union women pulling together: visible

Women in maritime trades unions and guilds. They're not very visible. That's what I keep finding out as I research seafaring women's history. 

What's the reality? What's just inadequate recording?

The lack of available information about gender in maritime history means it's good to be able to pick out a few highlights from Pulling Together, Nautilus International's history, which has just been published this week. See https://www.whittlespublishing.com/Pulling_Together. 

Pulling Together's author Andrew Linington (pictured) mentions the following items about women in this history. Since 1857 predecessor unions have included MNAOA and NUMAST :

HIGHLIGHTS

1933. Supporting the new  Watch Ashore (organising supportive women relatives of members)

1979. NUMAST establishes the Victoria Drummond Award for an outstanding contribution by a woman, boosting women's achivements at sea. (The first recipient is Sheila Edmundson, the first woman captain. Others are Rachel Dunn [2012], Barbara Campbell [2015], Helene Peter-Davies [2019].
2010. The Women's Forum begins, see pic.

2014. Union campaigns about cadet Akhona Geveza, who disappared overboard following her rape allegation

2016.  After working since 2002 at eliminating bullying and harassment at sea (which disproportionately affects women) Nautilus, ITF and the International Chamber of Shipping publish global guidance.

--

Many matters, of course, affect seafarers whatever their gender. The book is replete with evidence about how much the union has done.  

Other maritime unions

My knowledge of other unions, such as the National Union of Seamen (which was for ratings, and is now RMT), suggests that key milestones are when: 

•  the first woman joins a union executive (usually early 1980s. I think Sheila was on NUMAST's council. She was certainly active in union matters.
•  union has its first women's conference  (usually mid to-late 1980s. Women are so few in the maritime industry that a full 3-day conference would hardly have seemed appropriate)
• union campaigns on behalf of a woman member who's experienced major, and symptomatic, difficulty in the industry
• union appoints it first female general secretary (Brenda Dean of SOGAT was the first in UK in 1985).

The Captain's crucial partner

Spouses have played  a crucial part in the maritime unions community. They've been supportive 'members' while husbands were away at sea. Among their campaigns have been safety at sea and longer leaves, as the cartoon shows.

So it's important to mention the 1933 founding of The Watch Ashore by Dorothy Nelson-Ward, who was married to Philip, president of the Officers'  (Merchant Navy) Federation.  (page 59). 

See: 
# my blog about Dorothy: https://genderedseas.blogspot.com/2023/04/how-is-nelsons-daughter-connected-to.html.
# my article on seagoing wives in the union: 'Wives welcome ... with sewing kits,'https://www.academia.edu/10082043/Wives_welcome_with_sewing_kits

Key fragments known about UK women's maritime organised labour history generally are:

1775. In the Liverpool Seamen's Revolt a woman is among those imprisoned for  'aiding and abetting' the protestors. Crowds released her and others from jail. http://www.billhunterweb.org.uk/articles/seamens_revolt1775.htm

1913. A Cunard lady passenger tries to set up a Guild of Stewardesses. (Women are already allowed in the seamen's union NUS so the Guild may have been a ploy to set up a conservative body, pitting ladies against militant men) 

1917. Suffragist Adela Pankhurst Walsh, Emmeline Pankhurt's estranged daughter, is active in the  Seamen's Union of Australia. She was criticised, then embraced, by the British NUS for her activism.

1913. Southampton politician Emily Palmer (pictured) becomes treasurer of the British Seafarers' Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Palmer 

1953. The Queen honours Irene Combs, the Watch Ashore’s vice-president and treasurer,  for services to the Merchant Navy

1980. With the backing of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), Lucy Wallace, cinema projectionist, wins the very first maritime test case. Tribunal finds P&O had wrongfully discriminated against her.

1980s. Women join NUS executive

1988. UN agency International Maritime Organisation's gender programme begins. It's supported by unions, and continues today.

2013. International Labour Organisation brings out Working  Paper 298 on employing women in transport, which includes maritime

2022. International Day for Women in Maritime is instituted (May 18)

Pulling together matters

Not all human beings recognise how helpful a trades union can be. So there are also negative stories maritime labour I have glimpsed over the years. 

When  Aquitania seafarers struck in 1921 some stenographers were prepared to be strikebreakers. See pic of Cunard ladies standing by in the London EC headquarters. They signed up as 'volunteer helpers.' 

By contrast, the 'perspiring gang' of women supposed to be cleaning the ship emitted  'a running fire of comment' at the gents who'd laid down their pens to  scupper the solidarity. 

Reading more

• A brief history of UK maritime women breaking through into non- traditional jobs, including the first coastguard Sue Nelson, in https://www.nautilusint.org/en/news-insight/telegraph/sailing-past-sex-discrimination/
• UK women at sea. Pioneers are briefly discussed at https://www.maritimefoundation.uk/publications/mma-2016-brochure/women-at-sea/
• See the global and European story of formal challenges, in the ITF's Gender and Transport discussion paper, 2011, at https://www.itf-oecd.org/sites/default/files/docs/dp201111.pdf
• Canadian waterfront women: Linda Cullum, 'In Whose interest? Women Organizing on the Waterfront - St John's, Newfoundland, 1948' in Journal of Historical Sociology, 22.1, March 2009, pp108-44

Ten interesting things about working at sea in the past: BBC2's A House Through Time

BBC2's A House Through Time, broadcast 14 Sept 2021, featured ship's steward Edward Partridge Fearnley.

If you want to know more about Edward   (see pic), who lived at Grosvenor Mount in Leeds,  read on.This is my extra detail about him, to supplement the show. It builds on research done by the Twenty-Twenty team too, especially Anna Bates.

1. WHAT SORT OF PERSON WAS HE? 

The Board of Trade official  photo shows he looks fairly attractive and intelligent. He sported the fashionable Adolphe Menjou moustache. I happen to be able to analyse hand writing, so I detect that he was cultivated and steady. At that time, by contrast, stewards hit the headlines as flashy wide-boys into bigamous adventures  and swindles.

2. WHAT WAS HIS LIFE PATTERN? 

Edward was born in 1877 and became a ship's steward sometime after 1901. He did around 38 years and died at sea at 62, in 1939, with lung problems. Certainly he was a ship’s waiter by 1905, when he was 28 - quite old for a newcomer to the sea.

We don't know how or why he took to seafaring work. He worked first as an import clerk, which may have fuelled his interest in travel and connected him to someone who could give him a reference for Cunard, one of the biggest names in shipping. He'd have travelled to its Liverpool HQ to be interviewed. Certainly reliability and a good service ethos were among the required traits.  

He was employed mainly by Cunard and didn’t change ships much. (See list below). Staying with the same vessel was normal if the Chief Steward and Head Waiter wanted you on their ship. Not everyone stayed with the same shipping line, because they wanted to go to other destinations instead. Edward might well have got tired of going to New York. But if he fancied Australia or Japan he certainly didn’t act on that wish and join, say, P&O instead.  Maybe he was happy being home one week in three, and on the best-tipping route in the world – to and from New York. 

He was buried in the Cunard section of a Manhattan graveyard; possibly his family didn’t think it was worth shipping his body home, or were persuaded against it.

3. HOW DID RACE COME INTO IT? 

Being a waiter was a white job, except for the low-waged Asian stewards working for shipping lines such as British India. Edward would have got several times their basic pay, plus good tips as he was working with American passengers, who tended to be generous with the gratuities.

4. HOW DID GENDER AFFECT HIS LIFE? 

Being male meant he was privileged and mobile in this maritime world. Women were not allowed to be waiters until a handful were allowed in on Buries Marks tramp ships for a gimmick in the 1950s, then later on Union Castle liners as stewardettes in the 1960s. See YouTube: https://www.britishpathe.com/video/stewardettes. Dining rooms were the area where you had greatest access to tips, so for as long as they could men made sure they - not women  - secured those rights.

5.IS THERE AN LGBTQI+ ASPECT?  

Hotel and catering work - on land and sea - was an area where it was fairly common to employ gay and bi men, or at least men who sometimes had sex with other men. So Edward would have had queer shipmates. Maybe he even shared the same dorm as some gay stewards.

6. WHAT WERE HIS WORKING CONDITIONS IN THESE PALACES?  

As a waiter his day began at 6am and ended around 10 pm. He served breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea on alternate days, and dinner, too. When he made it to First Class waiter his job was easier: only one sitting for dinner, not two, and better baksheesh - but stuffier diners.

Edward on Orduna's crew list, 1915.

7. WHAT PART DID HE PLAY IN WW1?

Waiters sailed in war, mainly on their usual ships which had been converted to carry troops. Edward was certainly at sea in Dec 1914, Jan and Feb 1915 on the Transylvania, with 312 other crew. In 1917 a German U-boat sunk the Transylvania; Edwards seems not to have been aboard.

In In March 1915, as a First Class waiter on the Orduna to and from New York, Edward is likely to have been bringing Canadian officers (and their families) to the UK to train before going to the Somme. In war crew were expected to also learn to use the ships' guns in emergencies. So Edward might well have been as adept at targeting as he was at Silver Service, going to and fro across the Atlantic. Not many areas were mined at that stage. A German torpedo narrowly missed the Orduna in July 1915. I don't think he was aboard at that time. He died before WW2 began. Stewards lost their lives in both wars.

8. WHERE DOES CLASS FIT IN THIS PATTERN?

Edward’s Dad was a stuff merchant’s clerk in Shipley, who died when Edward was 14. So Edward went with mum and siblings to live with his maternal grandparents in Headingley, the house featured in the A House Through Time programme. (See photo of presenter David Olusoga there today). It was fairly posh, but VERY crowded. He had a genteel upbringing and reasonable education, so he'd know about how to behave with the elite passengers upon whom he waited.




9.WHAT ABOUT EDWARD'S FAMILY LIFE?

There's no typical pattern for stewards' families of that period, except that usually seafarers’ children followed in parental footsteps. Edward's dad was in textiles and Edward had no children, so he was not part of a maritime dynasty. Two of his younger sisters became teachers. Edward would have been able to put in a good word and help get them jobs as stewardesses, if they had fancied what was seen as a daring life for a genteel lady. About 50% of seafarers were married, as Edward was, although we don't know when exactly he married. Shipmates did have adulterous relationships, but more so on long-distance voyages.

10. WHAT'S A STEWARD'S HEALTH LIKE?

Was he an exception? No, only in dying on board. 24:7, Edward did not live the good life his wealthy passengers enjoyed. Most ship's stewards ate their meals on the hoof, so they had gastric problems and kept popping Rennie indigestion tablets. Many men smoked at that time, which worsened lung problems for lowly crew sleeping in poorly ventilated area.

It sounds like Edward had a serious health problem because in April-Jun 1932 he became a lift attendant on the ship - a non-arduous job, like lavatory attendant, which was a sort of grace-and-favour job allocated to loyal elderly staff who were not capable of much exertion. Then for a further six months he became a servants’ hall steward, which was light work. The fact that Cunard did not get rid of him when he became poorly indicates that he was regarded as a useful company man. It's very unusual to die in your bunk, at sea, of natural causes. Most shipping employers would have been ‘let go’ before they reached that state of ill health.

–

What ships was Edward on?

1905: Campania

1914: Transylvania

1915. Orduna

1921-33. Aquitania

1934. Scythia

1935-1939: Lancastria

MTF seafarer tells her transition story

Transgender Pride flag, designed by Monica Helms

When even just one trans seafarer tells their story it changes global understanding of maritime pasts. It challenges oppressive normativity.

So it's useful that you can now read online, free, Michelle Clarke's interview about her transitioning. Go https://tinyurl.com/Michelle-Nautilus. I wrote it.

Michelle (born 1955) was trained at Plymouth School of Maritime Studies  and became a First Officer in the Merchant Navy.Her story is just published in Nautilus International Telegraph  21 March 2021. 

Michelle Clarke today.
 Image courtesy of Michelle.

Here's an extract:  "it was not until her marriage ended in 2016 that Michelle truly became herself, changing her name by deed poll and wearing feminine clothes full-time.

"The years leading up to this had been very tough for Michelle, with many physical and mental health problems ...

"Since 2016 she has been healthier and happier. She is educating people about transitioning on a range of  courses run by her new business, National Gender Training: https://nationalgendertraining.co.uk/.

And she's hopeful about the future for gay and trans seafarers.

"'There's still bullying and a masculine culture at sea,' she acknowledges.

"'But it's very enlightening to see the shipping community embracing the LGBT+ spectrum, and organisations like Maritime UK and Nautilus pushing the drive for greater acceptance. I want everyone to know that trans people are just like anybody else.'"

See From Ship to Shore and a Whole Lot More, her autobiography, which is due out later this year.

The first ship’s doctor to transition

Dr Michael Laurence Dillon (1915-62) was the first known female-to-male person to be a doctor in the Merchant Navy.

Now there are plans afoot to celebrate him with a blue plaque.

 Also St Anne’s College, Oxford, his old alma mater from 1934-38, is beginning a series of public lectures in his name.  Michael Dillon LGBT+ Lecture Series. So far there is no indication that any of these talks will refer to his time at sea, 1952-58.

To my knowledge there are just two women doctors who concealed their identity on ships. Army surgeon James Miranda Steuart Barry (1789-1865) sailed out to postings, but was not a ship’s surgeon.   And circa 1927 a US merchant marine doctor was found, on her death, to be female.  No one suspected.

Doctor Michael wrote an autobiography in 1962 which was only published in 2017. He’s got a Wikipedia entry and two other biographies too.

 Recent blog entries focus on his links with St Anne’s, where Michael studied Greats from 1935-38:

•  Dr Jay Gilbert, "We Have Always Been Here": Michael Dillon and Transmasculinity in Pre-War Oxford
• Duncan  Jones, L.M. Dillon at Oxford, L.M. Dillon at Oxford

At the moment I’m trying to track down Michael’s situation in the shipping industry by speaking to seafarers.

 Born Laura  Dillon, this ex-Girl Guide and Oxford Blue had been sailing, unsuspected, for six years after pioneering surgical and hormone treatment in the 1940s.

 In his autobiography, Out of the Ordinary, he describes how well the ship’s agents and his fellow officers aboard Ellerman's City of Bath behaved when he was outed by the press while stopping over in Baltimore in May 1958.

 He went to see the captain ‘praying he might be in his paternal mood ...  he became kindly and sympathetic at once, and promised to do all he could do to help ... cabled the agents in New York asking for a police guard for the gangway.’

 When Dr Michael went to find out how his shipmates were reacting  to the news ‘The Second poured me out a gin, raised his glass, and knocked mine and then said .... [he and the Sparks]  had discussed it at length over beer the night before ... [They] had come to the conclusion that I had had a rough deal ... since they had liked me before and I had not changed overnight they saw no reason for letting it make any difference.’

 The chairman of Ellermans replied to Michael’s news offering ‘his sympathy’. 

The medical superintendent said he '“still hoped I would stay with the company and would back any arrangements I liked.”’

 ‘But it would have been an impossible situation ... I would have been the target for speculation and whispers, until they got to know me.’

And so ‘Doc Mike’ asked to be discharged from the City of Bath in India. Just after his 43rd birthday be began a new life and went on to become the first western Buddhist novice. He died in 1962.

 By contrast April Ashley had joined the Merchant Navy as a seaman in 1951, sailing on the Pacific Fortune: See.April Ashley's Odyssey   (Picture of April in 2000.)

She had been born in 1935 and sailed the year before Michael first sailed. She became famous for her male-to-female transition after 1960, long after she had left the sea. 

I have met seafarers who regarded her, and Christine Jorgensen in 1952, as inspirational. By contrast Michael was the focus of very little publicity at the time.

All-women bosses aboard? Historic precedents for Celebrity Cruise's Edge

Some of Celebrity Edge's all-women officers and deck team. Pic: Celebrity Cruises.

Why would a cruise this March be of interest to historians who won't be on it? 

Because - seemingly the first time ever - a ship is sailing with all women officers (in the deck and hotel departments). That's how far we've progressed in a once very misogynistic industry. https://gcaptain.com/celebrity-edge-to-sail-with-first-all-female-bridge-team/

On a Celebrity Cruises ship 26 women officers will sail in Captain Kate McCue’s team  on Celebrity Edge, from March 8-15 2020. https://www.celebritycruises.co.uk/discover-magazine/news-events/international-womens-day/

P&O Cruises almost managed a similar feat, with five women officers on the Pacific Pearl to the South Pacific in 2011. 

Kate (pictured left) is the US’s first cruise ship captain and says 'Excitement does not even begin to describe how I’m feeling about working alongside these incredible, barrier-breaking women ... on this truly historic sailing.'

This significant step really is a very important and inspiring breakthrough. Part of the global campaign to include women on ships, this voyage is a kind of crescendo to the International Maritime Organisation's year of empowering women, 2019. https://www.nautilusint.org/en/news-insight/news/a-year-of-empowering-women-in-maritime/

Celebrity Cruise's part in this long struggle against cultural lack of diversity is that - under Lisa Lutoff-Perla, its path-breaking president and CEO - the company is pushing a Bridge the Gap initiative.

 Working on bridging that gap: Lisa, centre; Kate, second from
right, and other Celebrity officers. Pic: Celebrity Cruises

FORE-SISTERS. LEADING THE WAY? 

Have there ever been all-women-officered trips before, on big ships not just small boats? 

The answer seems to be 'Yes, twice. In 1,500 years: in Denmark and China.' 

And the veracity of those sailing stories seems a bit slippery. It's a good idea to read between the lines.

That's why I'm hoping the Celebrity Edge staff are going to leave much better accounts of their voyage, for posterity's sake.

Here are the two patchy stories of predecessors.

DENMARK c500 AD

In this first story, the doubt is 'Did these events really happen?' Or 'Is the dramatic tale is just a product of a time when historians didn't distinguish between myth and history?' Fake news? Fantasy?

Saxo Grammaticus, artist's impression
by Louis Moe

Saxo Grammaticus's fifteenth-century telling of a fifth-century story, in The Danish History, Vol 4, goes like this: 

Princess Aflhild/Alwilda, the Goth king’s only daughter, had love problems that drove her so mad that she set sail as a pirate.

"Enrolling in her service many maidens who were of the same mind  [wanting to live as shield-maidens in a life without men, she set sail. After a while] 

'she happened to come to a spot where a band of [sea]rovers were lamenting the death of their captain, who had been lost in war; they made her their rover captain for her beauty, and she did deeds beyond the valour of woman.'

So her ship had been a sort of floating and very bustling convent, with Captain Alfhild as a seagoing Mother Superior crossed with a sort of Viking raider.

Then when the male seafarers showed they could accept a woman's authority - if she looked pretty enough -  women and men worked together on board.

Her 'Amazonian' crew would have numbered far less than 100. And they would have been what we'd now call Scandinavians. Celebrity Edge's crew is 1,377-strong and the women officers are of 16 nationalities.

Alfhild's team sailed for months, not seven days. They were in chilly Danish and Finnish waters that were sometimes frozen,not the warm Caribbean. 

The women’s business was raiding coastal communities, not giving 2,918 passengers a very nice time.

The two (royal) shield-maidens, left, were essentially raiders. Focusing on
customer service? I don't think so. Keen on esprit de corps, yes.

And Alfhild's was a small no-frills vessel. By contrast,  'luxury comes as standard' says Celebrity of its most powerful ship. It's so wonderful it even has a Magic Carpet (a grand sort of elevator-cum-mobile conservatory). 

The Danish maid-pirates endured months that probably felt like forever. Celebrity Edge is sailing for just seven days, which will probably feel like not enough. 

Pleasures will include inspirational talks, a  tournament where Fearless Female Officers and guests play sports, plus screenings of iconic movies by female directors.

Captain Alfhild; probably not
mistakable for Captain McCue. 

What happened eventually on Captain Alfhild's un-named ship?

Kismet. After a period of depredation Princess Alfhild (pictured right) came face-to-face with her old beloved, Captain/Prince Alf, sailing on an enemy ship. She somehow dropped her enmity, as did her second-in-command. 

Xenophobia  melted away in a kind of smiley but macho double-date. 

Alf 'took hold of her eagerly, and made her change her man's apparel for a woman's; and afterwards begot on her a daughter, Gurid. Also Borgar wedded the attendant of Alfhild, Groa, and had by her a son, Harald.'

It seems the pirate maidens agreed to swap their oars for kitchen utensils, staying on land while their men returned to sea roving.

Is this a happily-ever-after story, as in post-WW2 movies about women delightedly downing their welding torches in favour of baby's bottles? Or did Alfhild's team realize that their capitulation was a Terrible Glitch in women's progress towards fulfillment in STEM careers? 

We don't know. 

And the whole thing seems very unlikely anyway because how could a group of women and an aristocrat have instantly accrued enough skills to sail a ship? Few, if any, women would have been allowed the opportunity to develop sea skills. (See Jo Stanley, ed, Chapter six, pp78-92, in Bold in her Breeches: Women pirates across the ages.)

So Captain Alfhild probably had little in common with Captain McKue except the ability to lead. 

Indeed, with so few voyages to her CV would Alfhild have even got a Cinderella-type job picking lentils out of the ashes in a Celebrity galley?

CHINA. 1970

As for the all-women-officer team  sailing on the Fengtao in Chinese waters over forty years ago... well, what exactly was that about? Was it just mainly women? 

The difficulty is that the only available translation is incoherent. And the link to the original memo is now broken. (See a fragment of commentary by Minghua Zhao online at Working Paper Series Paper 14 - ORCA - Cardiff University, p10)

Captain Kongqing Fen's Feng Tao. Picture courtesy of
http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=950856

This is what I can piece together from the memo: 

From at least 1976 to 1980 eleven women officers sailed on the Shanghai Ocean Shipping freighter Fengtao. 

Compared to the Celebrity Edge the Fengtao was tiny. It weighed 10,365 tons and was 528 feet long; the Celebrity Edge is over ten times the size: 129,500 tons and is 1,004 feet long.

Captain Kongqing Fen took her ship mainly from Shanghai to Japanese industrial ports including Yokohama and Kobe, as well as Dubai and Hong Kong. She didn't go to lovely resorts. 

Trips were short and repetitive. The team made seventeen voyages in 1978-79, round the Japanese coast.

Fengtao's freight was not, of course, happy holidaymakers sunbathing and splurging freely all over the ship. 

Instead the holds were crammed with cotton when teh ship was outbound, usually. When homeward bound the cargo contained  pipes, groceries, televisions, sugar, and cement.

The eleven women crew, who were assembled especially for this ship, ranged in age from 20 to 42. It seems their roles included accountancy, medical work, marine engineering, and translation. 

Because these were revolutionary times the ship also carried what the Celebity Edge never would: a political commissar. Such people can be seen as a cross between a welfare officer, a public relations expert, and a Master at Arms (security staff). The Fengtao's Yin Lingzhen had formerly been deputy secretary of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee.

How did it happen? 

Chinese seawomen had been working coastally and on rivers and docks since at least the 1950s, including with engines. Some had been ABs and greasers. 

Few had crossed oceans but China's revolutionary leaders wanted women to be able to segue into all sorts of non-traditional jobs.  

Doing just three weeks of training in ocean-going skills - on top of their pre-existing coastal skills - doesn't sound like enough. So there must have been some experienced male officers too, surely.  

Certainly we know that the male crew were warm towards the women and keen to help with heavy jobs. Both women and men staged theatricals to entertain each other. 

When abroad the women appeared at many diplomatic events. They were acclaimed as path-breakers.

Why arrange a women-only ship, and at this time, in China?

Possibly it was because of shortages of labour. Maybe it was to create some positive publicity in foreign ports, at a time when women's liberation was just being discussed. 

Celebrity Edge today

Given this sparse record, it's clear that anyone on the Celebrity Edge in March 2020 is going to be sailing in a very different style in the hands of these modern officers. 

This pioneering sort of voyage will become increasingly unremarkable as women take up jobs on ships.

But for now such a women-only experience is something to be valued. 

Finding out more

You can read news interviews with sea women via: https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/downloads/women-seafarer-snapshots

See also The Rise of the female captain at https://www.cruise118.com/advice/rise-of-the-female-captain-how-women-are-leading-the-cruise-industry/

Virgin's new cruiseship captain

This is a straight lift of a Virgin article, 11 Jun 2019 (with just some sub-headings and pix by me, for readability). 

I think the article is really interesting because of the way this woman captain - yet another to join the ten-plus in the cruise ship industry -  is applying emotional intelligence to the once patriarchal business of leading the shipboard team. 

Fascinatingly, Wendy Williams has been in the very hard work of fishing - as few UK women have been at all. No other women cruiseship captains have come from this gruelling industry.

Her adults-only ship, the Scarlet Lady,  is Virgin's first cruise ship. You can take a virtual tour of the ship here  

https://youtu.be/koDL3Sj3D3g

A captain's calling

NO LIMITS

The only thing that is going to limit you is your own imagination. A piece of advice Captain Wendy Williams’ parents gave her when she was a child, that she’s always held close.
 “Their message was that you can do and be anything you imagine,” she adds, “and I've always believed in that.
"You don't have to be limited by anything.”

FIRST CANADIAN WOMAN

As it turns out, they were right. Her imagination was vast, focused and driven, guiding her through a successful dream career at sea, where only under three percent of the world's mariners are female. That journey has led her to this moment, as she takes on the first captain role for Virgin Voyages’ premier vessel, Scarlet Lady, making her the first Canadian woman in history to captain a ship for a major cruise brand.

HEART OF SHIP

“If you're the heart of the ship and your heart’s in the wrong place, then you're not going to have a good ship. I’ve always been known as the captain with a heart.” she says about her approach to her new role, “I intend to be the best captain I can be and love every moment of it.” 
Born in Sept-Iles Quebec, on the Northeastern Coast of Canada, Captain Wendy is certainly no newcomer to the sea. She has spent the larger part of the last three decades on the water, in different capacities.
“I’m pretty sure I have sea water in my veins,” she says about her upbringing.

GRUELLING 

Commercial fishing was her first career at sea, starting out as a deckhand, then an observer and eventually working in all capacities, for her own vessels. During that time she became enamored with the sailing of the ships themselves and began to move in that direction.
She credits that background with giving her the confidence she has today. “Fishing brings you very close to the weather and how it changes,” she said, “I’ve learned a lot about reading the weather from being on a fishing vessel.”
After battling that very grueling industry for about a decade, during which time she met her husband, they decided to go to school together at The British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), Pacific Marine Training Institute, located in North Vancouver.  (Pictured)

Soon after Captain Wendy began her cruise ship career, still only one of very few women in the industry at the time.
Though she has captained many vessels in her career and was a Staff Captain for 6 of her 15 years in this industry, this Virgin Voyages role will be her first time mastering her own cruise ship.

NO GENDER ON THE BRIDGE

“I think we're making amazing strides now,” says Captain Wendy about women in mariner roles. “When you walk onto the bridge you don’t have a gender. You’re a mariner. You’re an officer, this is what you do.
"This is what we do together. There should be no bearing on what our gender is. And that's the kind of bridge that we are going to have. There's no space in our day to have gender bias.” 
Captain Wendy says her primary focus at Virgin Voyages will be on crew. “While structure is of utmost importance for safety and order on a ship,” she adds.
“I'm driven to embrace inclusivity and set an example that all people should be treated with respect and integrity.”
A deep love for the sea drives all she does, and she’s described a life at sea as her calling, “For me, the sea is my religion. It’s where I think. It’s where I have clarity. I’m not afraid of it and I’m respectful of it.”
When this position with Virgin Voyages arose, she had been looking for a fresh perspective on the sea travel industry, which is why this partnership feels so destined, both for Captain Wendy and for the team at Virgin Voyages.

 Virgin's doing it differently in every way. This sort of advert for seagoing labour is no more standard in the biz than is the ship's revolutionary design.

 

DIFFERENTLY

“The whole thing for me is that [at Virgin Voyages] we’re going to do it differently,” said Captain Wendy, noting that she was drawn to the brand because of a shared drive for treating the sea with care and respect.
“I’ve encountered people in my career who feel being kind and smiling is a sign of weakness, but I believe it’s my greatest strength,” she says about her thoughtful approach to all she does.
“I have to care about everyone and everything. I’m the Captain.”
To that, we can only say: Aye aye! Welcome aboard, Captain Wendy!



This article is at https://www.virginvoyages.com/ahoy/stories/captainwendy?utm_medium=email&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=captainwendy