SHIPMATES ASHORE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 August 1942, Page 5

SHIPMATES ASHORE

CLUBS FOR MERCHANT SEAMEN. 8.8. C. AND OTHER ENTERPRISES IN LONDON. A popular song of long standing insists that “all the nice girls love a sailor.” Today, every nice person of either sex is filled with admiration for the men who run the gauntlet of the war time seas. And we are most of us agog to show our seamen how well we are aware of what we owe to their grit and mettle—and in particular to the gallant men of the Merchant Service, because it is not part of their peace time training to be combatants. The 8.8. C. devised its own token of appreciation —a novel and a practical one —many months ago. It sponsored a club, open every Wednesday morning, in the heart of London, for the men of the Merchant Navy—Allied as well as British. The club was given the salty name of Shipmates Ashore. Its amenities were not restricted to seamen on leave. Those afloat can keep in touch with their club by means of radio. All the “fun and games” of the Wednesday rendezvous are broadcast. on the following Saturday—firstin the forces programme of the Home Service and afterwards on short waves in overseas transmissions.

So popular has this club become with seamen that now, for the first time, the Merchant Navy is to have its own permanent club in the West End of London.

Broadcasting in Shipmates Ashore, Mr George Tomlinson, Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Labour and National Service, has now announced that: “Workers in America sent us a very generous sum of money to open a club for Merchant Seamen in London. Well, we’ve noticed how you’ve cottoned on to this one-day-a-week club opened for you in the West End by the 8.8. C., and we’ve taken the hint. You want a West End club —we’re going to give it you, and very soon. We’re going to make this club the centre of the Merchant Navy world.”

The permanent club’s premises—opened by the Port Welfare Committee of the Ministry of Labour—are the old Florence Restaurant in Rupert Street, Piccadilly. Shipmates Ashore continue to be entertained once a week by the 8.8. C. and the broadcast continues under its keenly-interested producer, Howard Thomas, with Doris Hare as hostessstewardess, and Debroy Somers and his band to keep “a happy ship.”