What is a girl to do! An unscheduled adventure on the high seas for Helen Wingate Marsh... 
Helen Wingate Marsh |
One afternoon in 1974, shortly before Christmas, Helen, a former merchant seawoman, and now working as a postwoman in Southampton, nipped off to meet up with her former crew mates on board her last ship, the SA Oranje. To cut a long story short, it was a marathon session, involving a lot of alcohol, and a drunken return to Lady Helen's, as she was known to her friends. The next morning, with time short before the SA Oranje set off on her voyage to South Africa, Helen and her pals made it back to the ship with just time to spare for yet another farewell drink on board. "As I was downing my fifth Bacardi and Coke", explains Helen, "I looked out of the porthole and thought, 'Oh! God Almighty!" What she saw was The Needles which meant the ship was on its way to South Africa - with Helen on board. Hauled up in front of the Chief Officer, Helen was designated a stowaway and promptly locked in the hospital. The plan was to set her down at the ship's first stop at Las Palmas.
Back home, Helen's mother who'd been looking after her 6 year old son for the day, received a phone call on Helen's behalf, informing her that her daughter was on board a ship for South Africa and was she willing to pay the round fare? She wasn't, and wasn't amused much by her daughter's unscheduled absence.
Meanwhile, clad only in her Post Office coat and carrying nothing but a comb, Helen made do on a whip round from the staff, until she was put down in Las Palmas. Here she was befriended by an English family, who invited her for Christmas lunch.
It was two weeks later that Helen finally made it back to familiar shores on the good ship Edinburgh Castle, "I was a DBS which is either a Distressed or Displaced British Subject. I wasn't at all distressed - just a little apprehensive about being reunited with my mother!" Her reception committee comprised of Customs and Excise, Immigration and Special Branch, all of whom wanted to have a word with her.
Helen's employees, the Post Office, were probably the most understanding, "The supervisor knew I'd gone for a drink on board, and said, "I bet that silly mare's on her way to South Africa!"
And she was.
