At Sea and Ashore

About the Book

At Sea and Ashore evolved through the decades, from the time at eighteen-year-old signed on his first ship in Montreal. Like many veterans of any conflict, the author did little talking or writing about his wartime activities until he reached retirement age (he was too busy working and raising a family). Then time began to take its toll on his friends from those far-off years and prompted him to begin putting far-away thoughts down on paper. One memory led to another; old photographs primed the memory-well even further. This led to researching the history of Canada;s wartime merchant fleet of 176 Park ships to be assembled during the war. The stories in this book are derived (more or less) form incidents that actually happened to the author and to the men he sailed with while serving as a marine radio operator on Canadian merchant ships during and after the 1939-45 war, or while working on Canadian marine radio coast stations.

About the Author

Hamor Gardner has his nineteenth birthday on the North Atlantic while sailing as a junior radio operator (Sparks) in the S/S Tweedsmuir Park. Prior to attending the Radio College of Canada (Toronto) in 1942, he worked at the Dufferin Shipyards in Toronto helping build Bangor minesweepers. When he left the yard to attend radio school full time, he was classed as an Improver Fitter making the princely sum of 57.5 cents per hour. The fitter gang he was with works nights. Seventeen-year-old Hamor would leave for work around five in the afternoon and arrive home about six in the morning. When the dust of war settled he tried his hand at various occupations, primarily in construction. Fate intervened when he met, and later married Patricia Baxter, sister of an engineer he had sailed with on a voyage to the Far East. When son Edward came along in 1952, the proud father became security conscious and returned to radio operating on marine radio coast stations before becoming a radio inspector, and eventually moving on into the heady air at headquarters in Ottawa. Son Douglas arrived in 1956 and has been army from the day he joined the army cadet corps at age twelve. Doug is currently a captain in the Canadian army serving with NORAD in Colorado. Ed followed in his old manÕs footsteps, and now, more then three decades later, when not at his home in Nova Scotia, can still be found somewhere on the ocean working in radio communications. When retirement came along , Pat and Hamor re-located near Lake Ontario. They developed a tree farm, did volunteer work for the Rideau Trail Hiking Club, gardened, never stopped improving their abode, and watched the years slip away into that never Ðnever land where they are hiding awaiting to be found some day. Hamor took a last fling at marine radio operating in 1980 when he sailed briefly on two different ships. That was when he realized the comfortable pew of married life had more appeal than the seaÉ although it still holds a fascination for him.