Another old mate died.
He was a right character, Andy Half Pint we called him.
Where ever we docked he would pull out a bottle of the local drink within 5 minutes of being there, and had this tradition of 'Drinking to the Land' he would fill a half pint mug with whatever the local drink was ( Vodka Rum Tequila Sake you know what I mean) and pass it around the lads, depending on how many of us there was, we'd get a sip or a gulp if only a few of us, and then he would fill it again and drink the half in one gulp himself 'To catch us up'.
He was as you may say 'a heavy drinker', one Christmas our ship was putting a make shift show on, and we had made a stage and got these curtains up do it looked posh and proper, and he announced he had a show stopping act, but wouldn't tell us what it was.
Anyway the organizer said he could close the show, because Half Pint became a bit violent when he got told he couldn't, and on Christmas eve there was all the usual crap going on, but it gave us a laugh, and then Half Pint came onstage at the end.
He had a flaming stick with him, and said he was a fire eater, he sucked some flammable liquid from a glass lifted the flaming stick and started gagging and then choking and spurted out this parrafin he was using PARRAFIN!
Anyway there was a huge explosion of flame and all the curtains went on fire and we had a mass panic, it was fucking hillarious.
I was only thinking of him last week the mad fucker, and will miss him like crazy, hadn't seen him in 18 months.
He was a right character, Andy Half Pint we called him.
Where ever we docked he would pull out a bottle of the local drink within 5 minutes of being there, and had this tradition of 'Drinking to the Land' he would fill a half pint mug with whatever the local drink was ( Vodka Rum Tequila Sake you know what I mean) and pass it around the lads, depending on how many of us there was, we'd get a sip or a gulp if only a few of us, and then he would fill it again and drink the half in one gulp himself 'To catch us up'.
He was as you may say 'a heavy drinker', one Christmas our ship was putting a make shift show on, and we had made a stage and got these curtains up do it looked posh and proper, and he announced he had a show stopping act, but wouldn't tell us what it was.
Anyway the organizer said he could close the show, because Half Pint became a bit violent when he got told he couldn't, and on Christmas eve there was all the usual crap going on, but it gave us a laugh, and then Half Pint came onstage at the end.
He had a flaming stick with him, and said he was a fire eater, he sucked some flammable liquid from a glass lifted the flaming stick and started gagging and then choking and spurted out this parrafin he was using PARRAFIN!
Anyway there was a huge explosion of flame and all the curtains went on fire and we had a mass panic, it was fucking hillarious.
I was only thinking of him last week the mad fucker, and will miss him like crazy, hadn't seen him in 18 months.
