About the Book
This is a story about boy growing up in a seaside town in Northern Ireland during the fifties and sixties, encompassing the Boys’ Brigade, fishing, football, college and motorbikes.
He was the youngest of six children and had a very good upbringing, filling his weekends with sport and motorbikes.
The BB also played a big part in his life; attending classes three or four nights a week and he recalls one yearly camp under canvas in the Trossachs in Scotland. He was a member of First Bangor Boys’ Brigade for many years and is still in contact with the company 50 years later.
The book focuses on the author realising his ambition in going to Harland & Wolff Shipyard in Belfast at the age of 16, the departments he worked in, characters he met there and the friends he made on this memorable journey.
It concludes where he has finished four years of his apprenticeship and goes to the local Board of Trade for grading as a ships engineer. Obtaining the necessary grade, he leaves the 'yard' and flies off to Portland Maine America to join the MV Orama; his first ship.
About the Author
Willie Scott was brought up in Bangor Northern Ireland, before the troubles kicked off in earnest. He went into Harland and Wolff Shipyard in Belfast to serve his time as a marine fitter in 1962 and left in 1966 to join his first ship as a Junior Engineer, spending many years at sea as a Ship’s Engineering Officer. Willie has been an engineer at a copper smelter on the Zambian Copper Belt, and at British Aluminium Smelter, Invergordon.
After spending the last 25 years as a Mechanical Engineer at Kellogg Brown & Root’s Off- shore Construction Yard at Nigg in the Highlands of Scotland, he has now retired to Nairn, writing articles on marine matters for an internet company and a marine magazine.
Willie is writing his next book 'Away to Sea' which continues his story. Here he recollects joining his first ship in America and the following voyages in oil tankers and cargo ships that took him all round the world.
He also plans to write a technical book on 'Preservation and Installation of Equipment to Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms' for publication in 2012.
No matter where he has worked, his apprenticeship at Harland & Wolff and marine engineering experience gained at sea
has stood him in great stead.
