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July 2010 | nautilusint.org | telegraph | 27 CAREERS AT SEA Above: the MNTB's cheeky Careers at Sea badges are popular with older pupils Right: MNTB careers coordinator Beth Richmond leading the May Careers at Sea Ambassadors training session Picture: Sarah Robinson Below right: younger pupils like to win the Nautilus 'delivered by ship / seafarers' stickers as quiz prizes Ambassadors for a new generation The Merchant Navy is well dhidden from schools.’ This wry observation, from Princess Cruises deck cadet Will Bishop, goes to the heart of the recruitment problem in British seafaring. If the Merchant Navy Training Board succeeds in encouraging more maritime employers to offer work experience places, then who will come forward to fill them? This is why the MNTB set up the Careers at Sea Ambassadors programme, a volunteer scheme launched last year with support from Nautilus International and the Marine Society. The idea is for maritime professionals to go into their local schools and youth groups to give talks about Merchant Navy careers — using an inspirational slide-and-video presentation and stories of their own experiences to open the eyes of their young audience. Ambassadors can start giving their presentations whenever they like, but many choose first to attend a dedicated training event. Will Bishop was one of eight participants in the latest session, held in May at the Chamber of Shipping. The attendees came from a variety of employment backgrounds, including ship’s cook, marine superintendent and tanker master, but they were united in their determination to tell young people about life at sea. The session was led by dMNTB careers coordinator Beth Richmond, who said: ‘Ideally, we need to inspire pupils about seafaring careers in the early years of secondary school, before they’ve started to choose their GCSE options or decided where they want to go at 16.’ However, schools vary in the way they deal with careers advice, and Careers at Sea Ambassadors have so far given talks to groups ranging in age from 10 to 18. Because of this, the materials provided by the MNTB are flexible, and can be customised to reflect the age and interests of the audience. While going through the presentation with the volunteers, Beth pointed out places where speakers could add their own photographs, noting that the pupils particularly enjoy hearing about ‘real’ seafaring experiences. The presentation also provides opportunities to engage the audience’s interest through games and quizzes, and Ambassadors are furnished with a selection of goodies to give out as prizes, such as badges, stickers and pens. The training session dmoved on to a discussion of the practicalities of giving a presentation, attempting to anticipate any problems. Beth offered tips on making the initial approach to schools and youth groups using existing personal or family connections, and she stressed the importance of finding out what technical facilities would be available for the presentation. On arrival at a school, she said, Ambassadors can expect some security procedures, but a criminal record (CRB) check is not usually necessary as the speaker will not be left alone with the pupils. And although giving the careers talks can be a lot of fun, Beth reminded the volunteers that they should present an honest picture of the industry. The MNTB presentation helps put across positive messages about good salaries, interesting work and sponsored qualifications, but speakers should be prepared to tackle issues such as piracy and the reality of spending long periods away from family and friends. An experienced Ambassador, Captain Mike Bechley, gave the group some useful feedback about the questions he had been asked during his own careers presentations in the Southampton area. Finally, the volunteers’ attention was drawn to the follow-up materials to give out to pupils expressing a particular interest, and there was an opportunity for the new Ambassadors to practise giving a presentation. gTraining events for Careers at Sea Ambassadors are held two or three times a year at the Chamber Many seafarers we note are under the illusion that to qualify for the 100% foreign earnings deduction, all they have to do is spend 183 days out of the country on foreign going voyages. Many have found to their cost, when investigated by the Revenue that it is not that straightforward and of course it is then too late to rectify. Make sure you are not one of them by letting Seatax Ltd plan your future claim step by step. Can you afford not to join Seatax? Seatax offers advice on all aspects of Personal Taxation with special emphasis on: ★ All aspects of self assessment ★ 100% Claims ★ Non Resident Claims ★ Completion of Income Tax returns ★ A full Tax service for Mariners’ spouses, starting from £25 ★ Now including online filing for speedier settlement Annual Return ......................................................................................................... £175.00 including VAT at 17.5% No commission charged on refunds gained. 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28 | telegraph | nautilusint.org | July 2010 MARITIME AUTHOR It’s the year 2000. The millennium celebrations are ringing rather hollow for 2nd engineer Nick Ardley, whose damaged knees have just forced him to take early retirement from the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. Having been with the RFA for the whole of his adult life, what is he to do next? A write turn of career for Nick RFA Sir Bedivere, above left; and Nick Ardley on an RFA vessel in 1975, above X RFA engineer turned maritime author Nick Ardley is in regular demand for book signings (pictured above in a Chelmsford bookshop). He was a featured author in 2008 and 2010 at the Essex Book Festival. Finding out that he had to leave the RFA well before the normal retirement age came as a heavy blow, says Nick Ardley. ‘At that time [in 2000], you weren’t allowed to tell people you were leaving on medical grounds, as it was forbidden to discuss medical matters, so I couldn’t even say goodbye to my colleagues. There was no support to adjust to my change in circumstances, and I went into a depression.’ The only redeeming feature, he adds sardonically, was that he had kept his National Insurance payments upto-date. It is fair to say that Nick would miss life at sea more than most. He had actually grown up on the water; his parents had renovated the sailing barge May Flower in the early 1950s to be a family home, and secured a permanent mooring at Frindsbury and later at Upchurch, both on the River Medway. ‘It wasn’t so out of the ordinary to live on a barge,’ he says, ‘but my mother and father were unusual in keeping it sailing. On many Fridays, Father [an architect] would come home from work, moorings would be dropped, and off we’d go for the weekend.’ The barge had no electricity or even running water in those early years, and Nick and his brother were used to rowing across to the well on the other side of Whitewall Creek opposite Chatham Dockyard to fetch water for the vessel’s tank. ‘We had paraffin lighting, and coke and coal for heating… there was a lot of physical work.’ Nevertheless, it was a special way of life with a great deal of fun and adventure. Working the rig became second nature to the four Ardley children. Not surprisingly, Nick began to lean towards a career at sea, and was encouraged by family friends to apply to the RFA. ‘At 15 years and nine months old I went up to London to sit in front of a load of old buffers to answer some stupid questions,’ he laughs. But those answers must have been up to scratch, because he was soon embarking on a 30-year career as an engineer officer with the organisation. X ‘I enjoyed the type of work,’ he says. ‘No two days were the same — I don’t think I’d have wanted to do the ferries. There would be eight months away, but then a long period of leave in the summer where I could go sailing.’ The travel aspect of his job was a particular attraction, and Nick says that his favourite voyage was the north of Norway and the inner passage: ‘I enjoyed it every time’. Another highlight was the socalled ‘round the world cruise’ in which his RFA ship, the 1949-built Resurgent, joined a Royal Navy task force. ‘It wasn’t so much fun in the “places of tension”, though,’ he muses. ‘In the first Gulf War in 1990, I was out there with the Diligence, and there was wave after wave of missiles, as well as minefields to negotiate.’ This was obviously a stressful period for Nick’s wife Christobel, although his young son Alexander seemed to have a touching confidence in his father’s survival skills. ‘He was at junior school then,’ recalls Nick, ‘and one day he came home upset that a friend’s father was to be sent to Kuwait. My wife reminded him that his dad was already there, and he cheerfully said “I know”’. In the subsequent decade, Nick worked his way up to the rank of 2nd engineer in the RFA (later renamed chief officer engineer). This period also included a fouryear shore post as part of the Sir Bedivere reconstruction project. He then went back to sea, but unfortunately, before he could reach the summit of his engineering career, his knees intervened. ‘I don’t know if the wear and tear started with all the crawling around I did on the barge as a boy,’ he says, ‘and maybe the vibrations on diesel ships contributed, but whatever the cause, it got so bad that my knees were starting to give way at times, and I was having trouble with the ladder out of the engineroom. I couldn’t have kept quiet about it knowing that something might happen, so I reported it, saw a specialist, and finally the RFA doctor told me I had to go.’ X So what did happen next? Nick says he had no luck with finding shoreside engineering jobs, and eventually decided to take a different tack, volunteering at his local college as a one-to-one learning support assistant for adults with special educational needs. He found this work interesting, and decided to take a qualification in the subject so he could take up a paid post at Essex Adult Community College in 2003. He now teaches entry-level numeracy and literacy, helping people with disabilities and those who, for whatever reason, did not learn to read properly as children. ‘It’s estimated that there are 8m-10m people below standard in literacy and numeracy in the country,’ he points out. ‘The brave ones are those who turn up to college asking for help.’ Nick feels that, much as he enjoyed engineering, his present work is ‘the most important job I’ve ever done’. He finds it fulfilling because it requires him to draw on maturity and life experience as well as technical skills. ‘Anyone with some intelligence can be an engineer,’ he says, ‘but the work I do now needs so much patience and sensitivity — you’re dealing with people’s feelings.’ X He may be a born-again educator, but Nick has not lost his links with the sea. He has kept up his membership of maritime professional bodies such as IMarEST and Nautilus International, and he and Christobel go out regularly on their wooden clinker sloop Whimbrel. Most notably, he has started to make a name for himself as a maritime author. A few years ago, an acquaintance at the Thames Sailing Barge Trust encouraged him to write an article about his nautical childhood. ‘Once I started writing, I couldn’t stop,’ he smiles. The article turned into a memoir — The May Flower, a Barging Childhood — and he has since had two further books of ‘bunkside reading’ published about sailing in the Thames estuary: Salt Marsh and Mud, a Year’s Sailing on the Thames Estuary and Mudlarking: Thames Estuary Cruising Yarns (reviewed on page 35). His relaxed, anecdote-rich style means that he has found an audience beyond the hardcore yachting crowd. With the books available on internet sites such as Amazon, he now receives fan letters from readers as far afield as New Zealand. X More books are in the pipeline. The next will be structurally similar to his previous yachting works, in that it will explore the experiences of sailing in all the different seasons of the year, but this time, he will not be focussing on a particular year or place. ‘I have sailing stories from all round the world as well as the Thames and the Medway,’ he explains. ‘I used to go out sailing anywhere I could if we were in port for a while with the RFA.’ There will also be a historical dimension to the new book, as it will look at past literature by other authors. Nick is also hoping to find a publisher for a special new project: a series of stories using a bank of core vocabulary which can be appreciated by adults learning to read. The stories would function something like the wellknown ‘Janet and John’ children’s reading scheme, he says, but using subjects of more interest to adults: ‘They’re written around the theme of a group of friends and how they meet up in their working lives.’ Meanwhile, he has heard that, following his colleagues’ puzzlement when he apparently vanished into thin air in 2000, the RFA has introduced leaving ceremonies for retiring crew members. He is pleased that others can ‘receive their cut-glass bowl’ and won’t have such an abrupt transition into shore life. It’s been a hard road, but Nick is now equally proud of his 30 years in the RFA and the 10 years since: ‘People ask me if I miss shipping. I do get a bit choked, but I would never have written the books otherwise.’
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