North Sea Tales

The rest of them being Gary, the Camp Boss, an old land drilling rig term, for the head of catering and domestic services aboard the offshore installations. He was a big jovial easy going Geordie, from Hartlepool, a “Monkey Hanger” to the uninitiated.

He waddled across, as he had had a few too many “pies and pints” in his life, and that life looked like it would be dramatically cut short if he didn’t change his habits.

“So, you passed your medical you, fat bastard? Wonders will never cease? How the fuck did you get anyone to agree you were fit to squeeze that arse out of a helicopter windae? He must have been a Geordie doctor, who goes “on the lash” with you. I mean come on, guys? None of us will be letting you sit in the windae seat, will we?”

Gary took it in good humour as ever, and well, like he had little option there were no shrinking violets in their crew, and if you weren’t getting the piss taken out of you, you knew something was really seriously wrong.

Gary: “Well, Bart, my son, glad you are still a great loss to the diplomatic core, I am sure they would have missed your silver tongued diplomacy, ably demonstrated as ever?”

Bart’s best Shakespearean repost was, – “Aye, and you can fuck right off”.

They shook hands warmly, that manly firm grip, that lets everyone know you are not a pussy, even if you are “just in charge of catering”, which was in fact one of the toughest mental jobs offshore, juggling logistics in a metal prison 150 miles offshore with erratic supplies, and chronic overcrowding.

Big Al strode across, and gave him a big bear hug. “Trying to break a fucking rib, ya, big cunt!”, gasped Bart, but big Al just squeezed harder.

Al: “Well, its the only way to shut that fucking smart arse gob of yours up, before I get an earful which I just don’t want to hear young man!”

Yes Bart was indeed the youngest amongst them, but by luck , accident or more likely sheer hard work and a never give up attitude, and of course a penchant for reading every piece of literature and manufacturers manual on board of whatever ship, boat, rig or oil installation he happened to be on, and soaking technical stuff up like a sponge. He was actually the most senior amongst them. Yes, he was actually a boss, the deputy Oil Installation Manager, and Barge Master of the drilling rig they had worked together on for the past few months.

Yes, that had been quite a day in between moving house on leave from his old rig, he had been asked to drop everything and take the next train North, and join the latest “Super Rig” just docked in Invergordon, in the Moray Firth.

He had actually seen the bloody monstrous thing go past his house, just a few days before, and enjoyed explaining just what the monster was that had loomed over the small fishing town of Macduff, he had called home since he was 14 years old.

His audience had been the folks in the pub, and his mother and father who ran the pub, he had fielded all questions asked, and he could see his folks were proud of him. “Aye, the loon done good”, was his fathers expression, and Bart could see it in his old man’s eyes. He had himself wanted to go to sea and tried to join the “British Navy” but his eyesight hadn’t been good enough, so he joined of course “The Airforce” where having good sight doesn’t matter so much and to make it even more ridiculous he ended up in “Military Intelligence”. But there you go, life is incredibly perverse at times, in fact most of the time when it came to Bart’s life.