# Captain Walter Gerald (Gerry) Hunt of Everards



## Carrie (Dec 13, 2009)

Some weeks ago I found Shipsnostalgia´s forums and also understood that there might be someone around remembering Captain Walter Gerald (Gerry) Hunt from Everards. If so it would mean a great deal to me I you would like to share your memories with me. Good or bad! As one of his children and maybe the youngest I got to know him mainly through letters and postcards from different ports; from Archangelsk to Casablanca and Istanbul and lots of European ports in between. For different reasons contact was broken in the mid-seventies when I was still a child. He was born on October 13 in 1916, lived with his family in Plymouth and some of the ships he sailed on were Fred and Rosemary in the sixties and Summity in the Seventies. He sailed on Scandinavia and that is where I live.

Since my memories of him in real life are few and my knowledge of his history even less known to me I would appreciate anything that can enlighten me on his life on the Everard ships as well as on his life and whereabouts before the fifties as I know he also had children born in the forties. I have tried to search records. It is not easy and I am a beginner but I would love to be able to learn more about my British roots. I do know that he served in the Merchant Navy during World War II and got some kind of medal but nothing more about these important years is known to me. 

As a child and teenager in the seventies end eighties I also met with Everard´s captain Ronald Trethew(e)y and his wife.

My own occupation is in some ways connected to shipping and if we had been in working life at the same time our roads probably would have crossed. In that way I also feel an extra interest in and connection to his occupational life.

Thanks in advance
Carrie


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

Welcome aboard from northern England, Carrie.
I'm sure someone will be able to recommend a course to follow.
Meanwhile find your way around and get to know the crew.
Have a good voyage.


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## TopsyRN (Sep 20, 2011)

Hello Carrie, 
I hope that you get this message as it has been nearly two years since you have posted!!! Well, I must admit that I am gladly surprised that I have come across your post, well, I hope that maybe I can make it a little more interesting maybe. 

Cut a long story short, Do you recognize any of these names??

Anne Hunt, b. 08 Apr 1949.
Geraldine Hunt, b. 24 Apr 1951.
Francis B Hunt, b. 22 May 1952, d. 16 Feb 1974.

I have in my family, a Walter Gerald Hunt, 
born on 13 Oct 1916 in Peartree Cottage, Hatfield, Hertford, and died 26 Dec 1993 I believe.

And I also have a seafaring history within my family, I believe that your Father is the Brother of my Grandfather, a Frank 'Bunny' Hunt of Braunton, Devon, UK. My roots are traced to Plymouth also as I still have Family there living in Torr Road, Plymouth. The Original home of my Great Grandfather whom would also be your grandfather I think??? I have added a link address so that you maybe able to look at a bit of a family tree that I am working on to see if i is the connection we have????

http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/t/u/r/Samuel-Robert-Turner/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0014.html

Please drop me an email and let me know, would be great to hear from you if we are long lost relatives!!!! 

Sam.


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## R790530 (Mar 30, 2007)

Hello Carrie
I’m sorry this is rather late, but I hope you find it and that it’s of some interest to you.
In April 1963 I sailed for 18 days with your dad, Captain Gerry Hunt, in the “old” _Ethel Everard_, of which he was the master. I was on my Easter holidays from the UK Merchant Navy training ship HMS _Worcester_, where I was a 15-year-old cadet, and Everards had allowed me to make a voyage as an unpaid supernumerary from Greenhithe to Casablanca and back up to King’s Lynn with a cargo of Moroccan rock phosphate. I had no official duties but I happily spent several hours each day helping out on the bridge, and occasionally doing some steering, so I saw plenty of your dad and got on well with him. He told me he had started his Merchant Navy career as a cadet with a deep-sea shipping line called Brocklebank (T & J Brocklebank – later part of the Cunard Group) on the UK-to-India service.
One night, on our way down the English Channel towards Brixham for bunker fuel, your dad answered an urgent radio call to “any Everard ship” from one named _Acrity_. Her master was called Moses and your dad knew him well. The engine of the much smaller and older _Acrity_ had broken down and she was drifting in the shipping lane not too many miles from us so your dad diverted us and we made preparations to tow _Acrity_ to Plymouth for repairs. We arrived at her location a few hours later, and our second mate was just about to fire a rocket and line across to her when our chief mate, Mr Albert Bromby, appeared on deck and took the rocket pistol from him, saying he would show him how to do it. Mr Bromby fired the pistol alright, but he must have been standing on the box containing the rocket line, because one of his legs lifted high into the air with the rocket and he fell backwards onto the deck. The rocket went round in circles high above the _Ethel_ before expiring and falling into the sea, but by this time your dad had brought the _Ethel_ so close to the _Acrity_ that our bosun was able to throw a heaving line across and set up the towline. Your dad was not only a good ship handler but was also a very nice man. 
Malcolm Maclachlan


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