RootsChat.Com

Hi,
Badge on right sleeve indicates stoker 1st class.
Qualified with auxilliary machinery certificates(AMC). This branch qualification
can be held by a MEM1, Leading MEM(LMEM) or Petty Officer(pomem).

Bob

Can recommend Goldwave. A bit complicated to use but very good.
This program was actually used to clean up Neil Armstrong's first message from the moon landing. Found the missing "and" which made sense of the message.
http://www.goldwave.com/
Free download.

Bob

Coming from a mining background as far back as 1800 and having had relations killed in the mines, it still grieves me to read of such dreadful accidents.
In the North East we've had our share of disasters.
Mining terminology relating to children :-

Trappers    1825:  boys of the youngest class, employed to open and shut the doors, which keep the ventilation in the workings regular. 
  1849:  A little boy whose employment consists in opening and shutting a trap-door when required : his wages are 9d. or 10d. per day of 12 hours (1849). At present 1s. to 1s. 2d. per day of 8 hours. (1888). 
  1892:  They are the youngest boys employed in the mine. They are stationed at traps or doors in various parts of the pit, which they have to open when trams of coal pass through and immediately to close again, as a means of directing the current of air for ventilation to follow certain prescribed channels. It was formerly the practice to send boys of not more than six years to work in the mine as trappers. They remained in the pit for eighteen hours every day, and received fivepence a day each as wages. He was in solitude and total darkness the whole time he was in the mine, except when a tram was passing. He went to his labour at two o'clock in the morning, so that during the greater part of the year it was literally true that he did not see daylight from one Sunday till the Saturday following. 
  1894:  Boy attending to a ventilating door.

Bob 

Eilleen

There are some superstitions that focus on good luck.  The albatross, a nomadic bird that covers great distances over the ocean, is considered a sign of good luck to the sailor.  When a sailor dies, it is said that the albatross carries the soul of the sailor.  An albatross following a sailing vessel gives it protection, as if sailors from the past are watching over the ship and crew.  For this reason, it is considered bad luck to kill or injure an albatross.

Bob