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September 22 2014
Francis X. McCarron
A lady from Liverpool, Eithne Webster, has kindly sent some documents of her father Francis X. McCarron’s service with the Assam Frontier Tea Co Ltd starting in 1933 and a little of her
memory of him to the Editor.
It is of particular interest to have his contract of employment as an Engineer Assistant 1933
which is 80 years ago and also the copy of his Provident Fund Regulations.
I quote below from Eithne's note:
I am sending you the scanned copies of the contract and Provident fund documents.
Unfortunately I haven’t anything much else. Daddy didn’t really talk much about either his
time in India or the war, when he served in the Merchant Navy, the only things I can
remember is he was in some sort of earthquake as he was driving and ended up in a
ditch and on a railway line he travelled on a hand pumped bogey at some point. He
also acquired malaria and whenever he was ill he used to get these terrible sweating
episodes. He also had a taste for curry, which was unbelievably exotic in Merseyside
in the late fifties and early sixties. In all the time I knew him he worked for Cammel
Lairds the shipbuilders in Birkenhead.
Francis in his Merchany Navy Togs
He died quite young in 1974 at the age of 62. I am also sending you a photograph of him
in his merchant navy togs. He sailed on the Elder Dempster line and was torpedoed on a
transatlantic crossing and spent 3 days in an open boat. Now of course I wish I had asked
more about it all, but as a child one didn’t really think about our parents’ life before we
were born.
Thank you for your interest.
Eithne Webster
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