# Old against current seagoing salaries



## Geoff Gower (Sep 8, 2011)

Was not like this in my day £50 per month as 3ed Mate !


Sanju Kr shared a group to the group: SEAFARERS GROUP.
1 hr · 

Urgent Need MSC Cruise
Free Visa & Flight Ticket
Tr.GP $650
OS $850
AB $1400
Oiler $1600
GS $650
C/Cook $2600
Deck Cadet $1250
5/E $1450
4/E $2800
3/E $4500
2/O $4200
3/O $2800
Steward $1400
Waiter $1200
Cleaner $1200
Laundry $ 950
Receptionist $1200
Only serious applicants Comments your Contact details


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

I see that an AB and a Steward are both on the same pay. Now see what all the recent action about sexual discrimination has brought about! (Jester)


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## ART6 (Sep 14, 2010)

It all depends upon when your salary lists existed perhaps? I remember serving my apprenticeship in Glasgow on a princely wage of twenty pounds a month, out of which I had to pay for lodgings, food, and laundry. Then finally released and off to sea as a junior engineer OFFICER (!) with the vastly increased salary of thirty-five pounds a month for an eighteen-month trip and where, in the officer's saloon, I and my other new entrants were carefully schooled to stop trying to eat cornflakes with a fork! I recall paying off from that trip with a whole thirteen Bahrain rupees to my name and, somehow, making it back to the Isle of Wight by sheer cunning. Worth it though...I had spent money on things (and ladies) all around the far east and had enjoyed every minute of it!

Promotion then, and moving up through the ranks to a position of authority where everyone deferred to one as "Sec" or "Chief", and wealth beyond human imagination...until the time to sling the anchor and find a shore job (invariably caused by women who have a habit of becoming pregnant at the worst possible times).

In my case, landing a job as deputy chief engineer in a new power station (God knows why, but don't question fate!) on a salary of eighteen hundred a year. Wealth beyond dreams...I could afford a mortgage to buy a house!

That was only fifty years ago. A pound now is worth pennies to what it was then, and so now I believe that the pension that I paid into for so long should now, with inflation, be at least to enable me to buy a yacht and a villa in Spain. 

In that case, why am I still concentrating on home brands in Tesco and dreading my next electricity bill? (EEK)


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## Ken Wood (Sep 6, 2006)

Started off at £11 per month, plus 1/- a month dobie allowance. After a year my pay was increased to £13 per month but my 1/- was "consolidated". Tight fisted buggers!


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## sibby (Aug 23, 2010)

1961 as an OS my pay was £5 a week, out of this was 30 bob for grub and thirty bob allotment. The spends on myself was made up of overtime.This was on a coaster.


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## Dion de la Croix (Nov 17, 2009)

*Deck Boy New Zealand 1956*

Base pay 17 pounds 12 shillings per month in 1956. A good overtime ship would easily double the pay with a bit more if working Saturdays and Sunday at sea. Standard 4 hours overtime each Sunday to clean the seaman's accommodation. Pay including keep was pretty good for the times.


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## Dion de la Croix (Nov 17, 2009)

Forgot to mention exchange rates. New Zealand on par with the British pound. New Zealand pound purchased 25 shillings Australian. Allowed to sub a maximum of 5 pounds N.Z. per week when on the Aussie coast which equating to 6 pounds 10 shillings Aussie was good spending money to purchase the latest in men's fashion.


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## gordonarfur (May 27, 2018)

1963/64 R/O with Union Steamship, pay 60 quid pcm + sundays at sea etc. Radio equipment M/F only and way out of date. Acommodation crap, crew surly and always looking for ways to hold the ship up. The unions managed to hold a ship in Auckland for 84 days while they argued with the company over the employment of a greaser. Result the ship and her sister were sold and the their jobs disappeared. Bloody glad to get out of it.


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## Dion de la Croix (Nov 17, 2009)

Hello Gordonarfur, I have a strong urge to reply to your post with my defense of the Kiwi coast. You must have had an unfortunate experience out here in wonderland. Did you spend your 2 years in older tonnage on the coal run? I will post a more comprehensive defense in the next day or so. Have a great year. Regards, Dion de la Croix {a survivor of the British merchant marine and their sub standard food and accommodation not forgetting the them and us attitudes. I had a foot in both camps as I was a them and an us}.


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## Laurie Ridyard (Apr 16, 2014)

1959 1st Year Deck Apprentice Hain SS Co - £108 for the year. £ 9 per month 
6 s. per day. Ovies at 1s 3d per hr.


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## slick (Mar 31, 2006)

All,
What about 'Field Days and Eight hours day of Arrival", in order to prepare the ship for Cargo Work?
I seem to remember in Hain SS if your Indentures expired whilst on board, one went on to AB's wages it was the increase in "Ovies" that pleased us most.
Yours aye,
slick


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