Location: Thailand
Member Since:
March 03, 2014
Geoffrey Walker
Biography
The author arrived in Hong Kong at a very early age and spent most of his life living and working there. Childhood recollections of the early years growing up in Hong Kong, friends and experiences, mentioned in this book are as accurate as memory permits. Names have been changed to respect the privacy of others but the narrative is generally factually correct throughout.
“A Tramp for all Oceans” depicts the years the author spent as an Indentured Apprentice Navigating Officer in the British Merchant Navy and is the first of an intended trilogy. The subsequent second and third books, due for completion in late 2014, cover his years served as a Deck Officer and the 12 years he sailed as Master, again mostly on ships trading around the Orient, Africa and India.
The setting for all is basically the Orient, East and South Africa, where the author spent many adventurous years tramping the various sea routes, calling at small and large ports alike. Some of the ports were little more than clearings in the jungle, up rivers that were only just navigable or not even marked on an Admiralty Chart.
The first book focuses on the last of an era when ships were all with their own particular “heart and character” and were crewed by what may be affectionately referred to as a “different breed” of seafarer. Light reading is the objective so technical terms used in the shipping industry have been avoided or kept to a minimum wherever possible.
The author remains very actively engaged in commercial shipping, still works in Asia and maintains a close association with his beloved Hong Kong
The paintings within the books are of ships with which, in one way or the other, the author has been associated over the years and are from his collection of originals, some 25 oils and watercolours by the renowned British Maritime Artist, Tony Westmore to whom acknowledgement is made
Melbourne, 8th October 2017
“A Tramp for all Oceans” depicts the years the author spent as an Indentured Apprentice Navigating Officer in the British Merchant Navy and is the first of an intended trilogy. The subsequent second and third books, due for completion in late 2014, cover his years served as a Deck Officer and the 12 years he sailed as Master, again mostly on ships trading around the Orient, Africa and India.
The setting for all is basically the Orient, East and South Africa, where the author spent many adventurous years tramping the various sea routes, calling at small and large ports alike. Some of the ports were little more than clearings in the jungle, up rivers that were only just navigable or not even marked on an Admiralty Chart.
The first book focuses on the last of an era when ships were all with their own particular “heart and character” and were crewed by what may be affectionately referred to as a “different breed” of seafarer. Light reading is the objective so technical terms used in the shipping industry have been avoided or kept to a minimum wherever possible.
The author remains very actively engaged in commercial shipping, still works in Asia and maintains a close association with his beloved Hong Kong
The paintings within the books are of ships with which, in one way or the other, the author has been associated over the years and are from his collection of originals, some 25 oils and watercolours by the renowned British Maritime Artist, Tony Westmore to whom acknowledgement is made
Melbourne, 8th October 2017