# Where are you, Jonathan Helps?



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

I first met Jonathan at the Trinidad carnival in 1980. Like many other new arrivals attending the yearly event, he hadn't any accommodation, as all of it is booked a year in advance for the next year's carnival. He met up with some of my crew in the various bars dotted around Port-of-Spain, and asked if he could sleep on my ship, Debut. Before long, I had a full ship of drifters and back-packers along with my crew of 27 young adventurers.
He had come to Trinidad really short of money, and had earned his flight by bringing along a large collection of cameras with a bag full of film, to take photographs of the carnival for their prospective owners. They could not attend themselves because of work commitments, so paid for him to come on their behalf and take an agreed amount of films of the carnival for each of his sponsors.
At the conclusion of this wondrous event, many of my crew left the ship to return home to their loved ones, or continue with their adventure by other means. I gained another dozen crew from these young adventurers, who slept out on my decks until cabins became available for them, wishing to travel on Debut along the north coast of South America to Panama, and the transit of the canal into the Pacific Ocean.
This included two Danish seamen, who had got drunk on their run-ashore, and their ship sailed without them. They had been living rough on the beach. They worked their passage to the nearest Danish Embassy at Curacao, where they were repatriated to Copenhagen.
Jonathan took over the position of chief mate of my ship, having had considerable ocean-going yachting experience in his own right. He was a large jovial fellow Brit from around the Surrey area. He was well spoken, of a public school education, with a keen interest in Scuba-diving.
Jonathan crewed on my ship through the Panama Canal, then along the Pacific west coast of Central America. When we arrived in Gulfito, in Costa Rica, he made contact with a consortium of drug-traffickers, who were running ten ton loads of marijuana to the States in relays with 6x6 trucks. He volunteered to join them, driving from the Panamanian boarder, north-west through Costa Rica and Nicaragua, along the Pan-American Highway to the southern boarder of Guatemala. He couldn't sign off the ship in Gulfito, as it's not an official port of entry, so sailed with us to Puntarenas.
After leaving Debut, I never saw or heard from him again, until he came on board my ship when I was anchored in Pago Pago, in American Samoa, with his young Brazilian wife.
They had met in the Tuamotu Archipelagos, in French Polynesia, where they had been working as divers at a cultured pearl farm on one of the islands. He traded a bag of pearls with me, to add to my collection of South Sea Island natural pearls, that I'd traded for in Penrhyn Island, in the Cook Islands.
The next time I met up with him was in Ipswich, in 1991. I had returned to the UK after being castaway for three years on Emily Reef, off Australia's east coast, following being shipwrecked in the Coral Sea. He was with his young son, who was the same age as my daughter, Zyanya, of eight years old.
He told me that he'd earned his money in Costa Rica and French Polynesia, and had flown to Brazil with his young wife to see where she came from and meet her family. He had bought a bar in Sao Paulo, south of Rio de Janeiro, where he was doing well.
I lost contact with him again, until he posted a thread in the Ships Research forum of Shipsnostalgia in 2010 about me and my ship, using the handle of Jonny Rotten. Zyanya pointed this out to me, as it contained my home phone number, and I had to explain to her who the real Jonny Rotten was, and his punk-rock group, The Sex Pistols. She'd, naturally, never heard of them.
I received a phone call from him a couple of years later, when he had arrived back in the UK, after sailing a yacht to the south coast from Brazil. He said he'd come up to Ipswich and meet up, but he never did. Get in touch, Jonathan, so we can chew the fat over old times. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

*A phone call from Jonathan, at last!*

Yesterday evening, after spending a very enjoyable afternoon and evening at my ex's, Mariana, flat for my 70th birthday, with all the children and grandchildren present... the youngest being Kasidy, the three year daughter of my youngest daughter, Jasmine, who spent much of her time jumping up and down on my lap... I had a wonderful, but sad, phone call from my old friend and crew-members, Jonathan, to wish me a happy birthday. This was the first I'd heard from him since he sailed his yacht across the Atlantic Ocean from South America to England more than five years ago.
He was the epitome of health and energy while serving as the mate on board Debut from Trinidad to Puntarenas, in Costa Rica, standing at 6 feet 5 inches tall. He was the last person you would think would be struck down by a debilitating decease, but after an unexpected weight loss, found out that he was infected with multiple internal cancer. After spending the last five years going through extensive chemotherapy, he told me that he was now on the mend... but still had much more treatment to go through.
He is planning on returning to Sao Paulo, in Brazil, soon, but he didn't say whether he was sailing back, or flying by plane. He may be on the mend, or having one last throw of the dice to mark up one more tick on his bucket list... who knows? All our thoughts are with you, Jonathan, and we all hope that you make your three score years and ten in another ten years time... then after that, every day that you wake up, put your thumbs up in the air and shout, 'Yes, I've got another one!' And live it to the full, as you would have earned in full every day that you have after that. All the best, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

*For Jonathan Hélps.*

Last Thursday, two days ago, I received an unexpected phone call right out of the blue from Jonathan. He was visiting Norwich, in East Anglia, and asked if it was alright to call in on his way back to London, where he lives in a sheltered housing scheme for those suffering from multiple internal cancer. An hour later, there he was... standing at my front door... all six foot five of him.
Like me, his hair was grey, although he had more of it than I do. He wasn't the old, bubbly Jonathan that I knew as a member of my crew on my last ship, m/v Début, on the voyage he made with me from Port of Spain, in Trinidad to Puntarenas, in Costa Rica. He was stooped and had lost much weight, but he still had a twinkle in his eye.
His multiple internal cancer had come back, and he was on extensive Chemotherapy to keep things under control. He even had to shoot up one of his medications in front of me in my living room, going through considerable pain in the process. His only hope was to keep alive as long as he could, enjoying the pleasures of life that he was limited to.
He told me that one of his only regrets was not being able to sail his yacht back to Sao Paulo, in Brazil, where he had lived with his young wife for many years after leaving Début. The little ship was still moored up in the marina he left her in after returning to England, and his main fear was that she would founder with no one looking after her.
I often told the old codgers at the Salvation Army Hostel for homeless men in Fore Street, in Ipswich... where I worked for the last ten years of my working life as night security... that once you reach seventy, every morning that you wake up, you should put up your thumbs and rejoice that you have another day, then live it to the full. I told Jonathan this, even though he's only sixty one years old. As I'm seventy myself, I told him that I did that every morning when I awoke in the morning.
At seventy, you've done your share... earned the money to bring up your own family, and helped bring up your grandchildren... now every day is for you to enjoy your last days on earth. You'll have long enough to think about it afterwards, looking up at the lid on your big dirt-nap! 
Live every day, Jonathan, as if it was you last. All the best, old ship-mate, from your old skipper, Cpt Dick Brooks.


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