Lunch Meeting: Job Talk - Bill Willson

23.11.17 BILL  WILLSON’S JOB TALK – a report by Martyn Turner

“I must go down to the sea

to the lonely sea and the sky ,

and all I ask is for a tall ship”

….well not exactly, Bill has had a career in shipping, but from dry land whilst others have sailed the ocean blue.

Recently joined Rotarian Bill was born in Skegness, moved to Grimsby as a child where he was educated.

He began his career in shipping with a company operating a ferry service between Scotland and Sweden before transferring to a fishing company and managing boats bound for Newfoundland, where the catch was transferred to factory ships. As crew manager, he had to sign on 90 men per trip (mainly from the North West of Scotland).  Unfortunately not everyone arrived at Immingham so they made up the crew with prisoners,  courtesy of  HMP Peterhead! (they were returned at the end of the trip)

He married in 1970 and lived in Edinburgh. He was now responsible for shipping wood pulp to (the former) Peter Dixon’s factory and when this came to an end the cargo changed to pit props and eventually china clay. 

During the 1980s the opportunity arose to own vessels (5000 tons) carrying  china clay from Cornwall with different cargoes on the home run.

One of his ships was commissioned by the MOD for the Falklands and this lead to others. On one contract a boat was “attacked by the SAS from helicopters !“

Unfortunately the captain failed to open his sealed orders with disastrous consequences. The contracts ceased.

He has seen many changes in shipping e.g. a change from English to Russian Officers.

The company has prospered, with more vessels  as well as developing road haulage.

“A boat sitting at anchor does not earn money so if a vessel is in distress and damaged it’s costly”. 

“Never”, Bill said “underestimate the power of the sea and there is always human error”. He retired in 2010 , so no more early morning calls “hello Mr Bill I’ve run aground in…..”