SS ARAMAC

My first mingling with passengers

Aramac was a passenger/cargo ship and very popular. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!

It was a pretty good run too - took about 6 weeks for a round trip.

Aramac was built as a Cunard/White Star Line ship Parthia - then Remuera for NZ run. My dad had been Second Mate on her as Remuera.

The Bridge was pretty much state of the art then! While we had HK Chinese crew onboard, this QuarterMaster on the wheel was a Malay. Ramat had helped our Captain (Burnie Dunn) when he was held captive in a POW camp during WW2. In return Captain Dunn gave him a job as his own personal QM. Ramat never spoke to anyone accept Captain Dunn, kept to himself, and was a very dangerous guy. He was fiercely protective of his Captain - we were shit-frightened of him! We were pretty much shit-frightened of Captain Dunn too!!

Christmas Dinner was pretty good !