# Flowers by radio



## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

Interflora was a big deal when I first went to sea in early 1961 - everyone was at it. Then later, in passenger ships, it was not just officers & crew, but passengers as well. Sending "bunches of flowers" for a couple of quid a time. I remember once when the shore telegram service went on strike, loads of businessmen passengers started sending minimum value bunches of flowers with their business messages on the cards. That was because the Interflora messages were forwarded by telex to the Interflora dealers and it was a way of by-passing the telegram service. Then in the late 70s, I think it was (may be wrong), Interflora suddenly heaped on the minimum order value and it seemed to virtually kill the trade overnight. Does anoyone else remember this happening? Now that radio officers have gone the way of sailing ships, does the Flowers by Radio service at sea still exist? Just idle curiosity really. Same to a lesser extent with the gifts service.
Bob


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## IAN M (Jan 17, 2009)

When I worked at Portishead during the 1950s, we regularly took messages for Interflora. I can't remember their exact address, but it was 350 or 360 something, Kensington High Street. For birthdays or other anniversaries, these messages could be sent in advance as SLTs to reduce the cost. 

Regards

Ian


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Interflora by radio kept going as long as I can remember. On German ships they had "Fleurop" - a similar set up but with its own currency "Fleurins", which worked in a similar manner to Gold Francs. presumably to enable the service to work in other continental countries.

John T


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## Baulkham Hills (Jul 11, 2008)

Interflora Sleaford I think that was the address, almost always sent by SLT. (not the full postal address as required for SLT but used to get through anyway)
The extra charges and minimum charges on top of the flowers made it in my opinion quite expensive.
I never came across it with other accounting companies apart from GB08.
I suppose as credit cards became more common other companies started up and some used to advertise in the "telegraph".
There was a gift catalog called Kaye's with Marconi as well. It was not as popular.
The Interflora organisation is still going.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Yes, I sent heaps of interflora messages...


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## Larry Bennett (Aug 28, 2005)

Interflora Sleaford certainly kept going for SLT delivery until the SLT service ceased in the 1990s. I can recall there being a special 'pigeon-hole' in our landline area for Interflora orders due to the number of SLTs received. 

When the automatic RTT service expanded to include database information (football results, weather info etc) I initiated a scheme with a company called Flying Flowers whereby an abbreviated version of their catalogue and ordering information could be accessed (free) by using shortcode FLOWERS+. Ships could follow the approved format by ordering by telex or fax directly to the company. I think I managed to organise a special rate with them too, but I cannot remember the exact figures.

Not sure how successful it was, but it certainly kept going until the bitter end.

Larry+


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## Moulder (Aug 19, 2006)

I also sent many Interflora orders during my time at sea. If I remember correctly the telegraphic address (QTC) was *Interflora Sleaford *and the SLT address was *Interflora Sleaford Lincs*?

Steve.
(Thumb)


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## harbourman (May 11, 2006)

"Interflora, Crown House, Morden,Surrey" rings a bell somewhere.


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## Robert Hilton (Feb 13, 2011)

One day whilst waiting for a link call I heard another vessel working Interflora with Niton on VHF. They requested £5 of red roses to be sent to a certain name and address with the message, "Ma petite fleur, will you marry me?" 

Niton asked, "What about a signature?" The vessel replied, "She'll probably know where it came from." 

Niton, however, probably bearing in mind that the caller had prefaced the call with, "This is private. Just let me clear the bums and stiffs out of the wheelhouse," replied, "Maybe she gets lots of those."


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

There was a really soppy coded message: "Across the many miles of ocean bla bla bla ....." for about 4 lines. Anybody who said "Just pick an appropriate one" to me - that's what they got.

John T


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## andysk (Jun 16, 2005)

harbourman said:


> "Interflora, Crown House, Morden,Surrey" rings a bell somewhere.


Aha - I remember it well !


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## gwzm (Nov 7, 2005)

Slightly off topic: Did any of you ever use the RCA and Mackay Radio services in the USA where they had catalogues of chocolates, flowers, hotel reservations and a plethora of really toe-curling soppy messages for every possible occasion - all chosen by numbers like a chinese menu?
gwzm


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## Quiney (Oct 2, 2008)

Once had one of my fellow officers complain to me about the folowers that he had sent via Interflora.
His girlfriend had written to him saying that they weren't very good and hope he hadden paid too much.
He in turn complained to me, almost implying that I'd personally selected the poor flowers (Jester)

Have to say though that I once sent some to my mother just before I paid off and she also told me that they were not very good quality and didn't last very long.

I often wondered if the florist knew that they were coming from someone at sea who would never actually see them and so quality was not really important?


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## 5TT (May 3, 2008)

Sleaford is the address I remember, and I think the address for South Africa was somewhere in Bloemfontein?

The SA deliveries were fantastic and seemed like reasonably good value, never a complaint.

I recall only one customer for GB08's gift catalogue, most baulked at the prices and/or poor selection, and one chap asked to see a certain item, thought I kept stock in a locker somewhere, I lost that sale too !!

= Adrian +


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## John Timmins (Nov 24, 2010)

I sent some flowers when I was on the *Brinton Lykes*. Sparks said to always send the seasonal bouquet and forget those floral displays. It was like trying to ship fresh oranges in August.

I remember picking the notes like # 7 and # 22, which would go in the card with the flowers..."Near or far I'm with you always" and "I miss you." You're correct, the choices were pretty sappy.


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## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

Once got some passenger coming to radio room on REINA DEL MAR saying he wanted to send a "bunch of flowers." He came out with his girfriend's name and the address was "C" Deck, REINA DEL MAR or something like that. Was very annoyed when we said we couldn't do it. I suppose if we had just sailed and had lots of flowers lying around, the pursers could have organised something, but they had all gone by then (the flowers that is).
Bob


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## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

When alongside at Sapele, up the Creeks in Nigeria, I was invited to join the Capt at the 'White Man's Club' - a place normally out of bounds. I soon found out why when someone came up to me, stuffed a 'few notes' (not £'s) into my top pocket and asked ' Send the wife some flowers please Sparks ' . No such thing as a free lunch even then !!

Many years later, I was on DD at Portishead in early December. An overtime duty for two days running was to sit at the Interflora private wire telex machine (a TAS machine) and pound out hundreds of messages, both QTC's and SLT's - both received the same delivery - it was Christmas !

David
+


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## Dickyboy (May 18, 2009)

Slightly off tangent, but someone mentioned Kays Catalogue earlier.
There was always one on BP tankers in my day. Much smaller than the domestic volume. It was quite popular on the ships I was on if I recall correctly.
I used to phone home via Niton Radio when I was on the ships as well. Never used Interflora though.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Each message was given a unique reference number. You may remember that the messages were listed in "blocks" of five in the Interflora catalogue. e.g. 

onezeroone 
onezerotwo
onezerothree
onezerofour
onezerofive

onezerosix
onezeroseven
onezeroeight
onezeronine
oneonezero

oneoneone
oneonetwo
etc., etc.

During my leave I had been going out with a nurse from the hospital where my father was a patient after suffering a heart attack. Soon after I went back to sea she had a birthday and I sent her some flowers by Interflora. I scanned the list of messages and chose something fairly modest such as "Birthday Greetings. Wishing you a very happy day." This was, say, the third message down in the second block i.e onezeroeight in the example above.

Before I could write out the message I was interrupted and had to attend to something else in the radio room. Once I was free, I finished preparing the SLT and sent it off to GKA. 

Unfortunately I wrote down the reference number not of the third message down from the second block (birthdays) but the third message down from the _*third *_block (Births).

On her birthday, when my girlfriend got off duty and arrived home on her bicycle she was met at the front door by her very angry father, brandishing a large bouquet of flowers and demanding to know "What the bloody hell" was going on!

The message accompanying the flowers read: "Delighted with the news. God bless you both."

Simple mistake to make, anyone could have done it. Honestly darling it was not intended as a joke! 

No real harm done although she admits to being dumbfounded for a minute or two. That has never happened since - and have been married for nearly 45 years.


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## surfaceblow (Jan 16, 2008)

I use to send flowers to the wife by radio. It was always the seasonal bouquet by advise of the local florist. While I was at home tending to sending flowers for a funeral while my wife was looking at the flower arrangements I made arrangements with the shop owner for flower and candy deliveries for the year with the appropriate cards and dates for delivery. I used this arrangement for many years until my wife went to the florist to send flowers for another funeral on checking out the clerk dropped our account file on the counter and some of the pre signed cards fell out of the folder. I went from being a kind considerate mate to being an sob. 

Joe


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## Dickyboy (May 18, 2009)

How was the cost of flowers deducted from the customers pay? Through head office pay dept directly, or by someone on board, before sending their earnings/deductions off to head office pay dept?


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## James_C (Feb 17, 2005)

The Interflora system is still on the go - only these days you can make the order via email, satellite phone and (I think) Inmarsat-C!


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## surfaceblow (Jan 16, 2008)

The companies I worked for the radio billing was a cash or credit card transaction. I remember that the florist preferred getting paid right away instead of having to wait for the shipping company paying them at the end of the month. 

Joe


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Dickyboy said:


> How was the cost of flowers deducted from the customers pay? Through head office pay dept directly, or by someone on board, before sending their earnings/deductions off to head office pay dept?


When the "customer" was a member of the crew, costs of all radio messages, including those for ordering flowers from Interflora, were charged to the person's on-board account and appeared as deductions on his/her account of wages. Just like charges for purchases from the Master's bond and slop chest.

If the sender was a passenger, the costs were just charged against their account, just as were their bar bills.


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## Dickyboy (May 18, 2009)

Ron Stringer said:


> When the "customer" was a member of the crew, costs of all radio messages, including those for ordering flowers from Interflora, were charged to the person's on-board account and appeared as deductions on his/her account of wages. Just like charges for purchases from the Master's bond and slop chest.
> 
> If the sender was a passenger, the costs were just charged against their account, just as were their bar bills.


Thanks for that info Ron, this opens up more questions about pay etc, which I'll open up another thread on. About the book keeping on board.


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## John Timmins (Nov 24, 2010)

On U.S. flag ships, ordering flowers and sending personal messages might be sent after Sparks got off watch and he could demand overtime. I never heard of Sparks doing something for a fellow crew member and not doing it free, however.
In 1974, I was eating with Sparks on the U.S. Lines ship, *American Alliance*, when an AB burst into the messroom at dinner and said, "Sparks, I gotta send a message." "Well, can't you see I'm eating?" Then the AB says, "I gotta do it right now." Sparks is getting pissed off and says,"Listen, I go back on watch at 1800 and I can do it then." The AB says," You don't understand, I heard on the radio that Nixon is going to resign as President, and I need to get in touch with my stockbroker!"
Now everybody is yelling at the AB to get out of the messroom and Sparks says, " I'd like to bill that guy overtime but if I do, I'll have to charge everybody OT for everything."
Later on the 8-12 watch that AB was on the bridge and took a swing at the Captain. He was relieved and sent to his room. Other crew members had to guard his room in the passageway and another to make sure he didn't go out the port hole. We were a day plus out of Le Havre for NY so the guard duty lasted about 5-6 days. Then we got orders to go to Norfolk instead. We docked near the laid up *UNITED STATES*, and the guy sees the "Big U" from his port hole and starts to crack up,screaming *" I'm not going to paint THAT S.O.B !!!!" * They put him in a straight jacket and after Immigration cleared the ship, the ambulance took him away. 
Through the years I learned that guy was quite a performer and was well known in the National Maritime Union hall in NY.


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

I don't recall ever sending an Interflora message whilst on British ships; did send a couple to Kays. ('KAYS WORCESTER' a registered address so it worked for SLTs as well as QTCs) These were out of the lingerie section of the catalogue; an instance where not 'acknowledging the existence of the communication' took a very real meaning in the mind of the huge 2/e who sent them!
I had an experience similar to Ron's when, on a Niarchos ship, we had a riding crew installing the inert gas system and the chap in charge, an ex-Shell 2/e, wanted to send flowers to his girlfriend when his return home was delayed by the work aboard. He specified the amount and chose a message along the lines of 'With heartfelt sorrow'.
She got a wreath!


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## Vital Sparks (Sep 19, 2007)

On BP ships payment for flowers telegrams etc was in cash. Crew members would sign for a weekly cash sub from the old man and then write a cheque to the company at the end of each month. Since the R/O was usually also the treasurer of the officer's bar, towards the end of the month it was not unheard of for the old man to run out of cash because the R/O had it all.


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## andysk (Jun 16, 2005)

Quiney said:


> Once had one of my fellow officers complain to me about the folowers that he had sent via Interflora.
> His girlfriend had written to him saying that they weren't very good and hope he hadden paid too much.
> He in turn complained to me, almost implying that I'd personally selected the poor flowers (Jester)
> 
> ...


I sent some to my parents who were in the Seychelles for their Silver Wedding anniversary, they outlasted their two week stay there !


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

What you get (even today) depends on the individual florist. Interflora doesn't actually send out flowers, that is done by member florists in each town. I imagine if members received a few complaints, Interflora would quickly dump them.

I seem to remember getting mostly good reports about the flowers I sent, but, let's face it, some whinging women will never be happy. They forget it's the thought that counts.

John T


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Maybe because of my wife's earlier experience with Interflora (see #24) or, more likely because of her being a former Yorkshire lass, she never uses their services today and so avoids their high charges for doing nothing more than forwarding your requirements to their nearest participating florist.

Instead, she uses the Internet to find a florist local to the person to whom she wants to send the flowers and then phones them herself. That way she saves a lot of money and has the name of someone that she can ring to complain if all does not go well. (She has never needed to complain so far).


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## Tai Pan (Mar 24, 2006)

On Asturias GLQS, an old lady purchased some flowers in Port Said and then brought them to the Radio Room and asked me to send them to her sister in UK. Had a lengthy chat with her explaining how it worked.


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## Trevor Clements (May 6, 2007)

I remember the address as Interflora 3 Norland Road London W11. Perhaps that shows my age. We used to bill the crew member via their on board account.

In my last year at sea, I was the most frequent user of the service, on our ship.


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## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

Can't remember now, in a QTC were the charges made up someting like this e.g.

Flowers 
Service Charge
Message + words or selected Interflora code

If there was a seperate Interflora Service Charge, how much was it?

Mike


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

I do remember sending an order from the Kays catalogue. This was an order for lingerie for the 2nd mate who was getting married The message said
"preparing for take off". I also ordered a new Jag for an engineer but not sure that came out of the Kays catalogue.
rgds
Graham Powell


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## hawkey01 (Mar 15, 2006)

Inteflora address was - Interflora Sleaford.

Think any charges were incorporated in the total cost of the flowers. Cannot remember any supplementary charge being added.

Hawkey01


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## sparks69 (Dec 18, 2005)

Never liked sending flowers - they made a mess of the key and god knows how the PA managed to convert them into EM wave thingies


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Didn't a lot of morse keys employ a "leaf spring"?

John t


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## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

> Didn't a lot of morse keys employ a "leaf spring"?
> 
> John t


Groan... (Jester)


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## RayL (Apr 16, 2008)

Reading this thread has reminded me of the best demonstration I ever had of the ease of long-distance communication if one obeyed the propagation tables. With the ship at anchor off Adelaide, the 3rd Officer asked me to send flowers to his girlfriend in Scotland, so the following morning I rose early, turned the transmitter on and blearily called Portishead - typically a slightly time-consuming procedure because one's faint signal was never picked up straightaway and patient repetitions were always necessary. This time it was answered by Portishead immediately and the message passed at once. Then I went for breakfast.

It was only then that I began to wake up properly and the penny drop that the transaction had been extraordinary.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

I often worked GKA from the Aussie coast.

As we all know...it is all about the right time/freq.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

I seem to re-call 0900 AEST on 8 or12 Mc/s was pretty good for GKA.

Ray does bring to mind how often we did things like that out of hours for folk who were forever telling us we did nothing.

John T


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## 5TT (May 3, 2008)

> I often worked GKA from the Aussie coast.


I never went to Aussie myself but judging by the number of QSPs I did for other fleet vessels in that area Capetown was a difficult one to get from there.

= Adrian +


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

On many a trip to Yampi Sound I would collect the arrival message, put it on my desk and go to bed. Get up at 0530 l/t and get GKA first call on 12 Mc/s.
Learnt it the hard way, by, the first trip, calling all night and finally getting a reply just as the sun came up.


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

I sent over 20 Interflora SLT's from Australia using a Marcon Seaspan transmitter radiating a magnifcent 80 watts!. The R/O at GKA said "weak" but managed to get them all . It was Christmas time 1969. I can remember working a RN ship which was in Sydney Harbour. Superb morse and a strength five signal . It all depended on the propagation in the end....
rgds
Graham Powell


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## John Lyne (Nov 18, 2010)

Reminds me of a cartoon drawn by a second Mate that could not comprehend the 'Flowers by Radio' system


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