Page 55 - Sjæklen2004

les historie arrangerede eleverne en revy med godmodige
stikpiller til staben.
Næste kursus kom vores forstander tilbage, og alt blev,
som det altid havde været. Vores inspektør blev alvorligt
syg og måtte gå på pension. Jeg søgte og fik stillingen. Men
jeg kunne ikke falde tilbage til mine gamle vaner. Efter 30
år på søfartsskolerne besluttede jeg at gå på pension. Det
var en god og værdig afslutning på min karriere inden for
søfartsuddannelserne.
Den sidste dag forlangte repræsentanter for eleverne, at
forstanderen samlede hele skolen ved det, vi kaldte 10-fri-
kvarteret. En elev holdt en afskedstale på elevernes vegne
og overrakte mig en pibe og en kopi af talen. Piben er for
længst slidt op, men talen har jeg fortsat hængende på
væggen. I al den opmærksomhed jeg fik fra kolleger og
overordnede - også fra København - var elevernes afsked
den, jeg stadig tænker på. Den overskyggede alt. De havde
kun kendt mig i to måneder. Med favnen fuld af blomster,
breve og andre tilkendegivelser, tog jeg færgen ved mid-
dagstid og sejlede til Esbjerg. Da sluttede vel nok det læng-
ste kapitel i min bog.
Jeg fortrød ikke et minut, at jeg i en alder af 61 år slutte-
de efter 30 år. Det var en helt ny tilværelse, jeg nu startede.
Verden var åben, og der var mulighed for at kaste sig over
ting, som virkelig interesserede mig. Sammen med advokat
Sven Thomsen startede jeg et indgående arbejde med Ove
Geddes rapport til Chr. D. 4. i 1623. Det kom til at optage
Sven og mig i mange år, og Sven nåede desværre aldrig at
se resultatet af vore fælles anstrengelser, som for nylig end-
te med et manuskript til en bog om Ove Geddes rejse til
Ostindien i 1618 til 1622. Nu er jeg i gang med den næste
bog, men om hvad der i øvrigt optager mig, kan jeg med et
citat fra William Shakespeares Hamlet kun sige: The rest is
silence.
Summary
The roughneck, fisherman, sailor, shipbuilder and dock
worker all have a story to tell. Whether the individual per-
son’s life was ordinary or atypical, the maritime world
holds a host of characters whose stories are worth preser-
ving because each in its own way tells of the conditions and
opportunities of a given time. The Fisheries and Maritime
Museum in Esbjerg has therefore attempted to induce older
people from the maritime trades to write down their life
histories for the benefit of later generations. Torben Abd-El
Dayem, former teacher at Danish Maritime Colleges, has
responded to the Museum’s request, and in this article he
tells of a somewhat unusual career which took him from
Cairo to the Wadden Sea.
Torben was born in 1926 as the fruit of a meeting in Paris
between a young Danish woman and a young Egyptian
man. He grew up in Cairo, Egypt, and after finishing school
he went to sea towards the end of World War II. After the
war he went to Denmark, where he entered Kogtved mari-
time college and subsequently built up experience first on a
number of small ships, and later on bigger ocean-going
ships. He also spent a period on board the ships of the Royal
Greenland Trade Department before he had experience
enough to enter navigation school in 1950. With his certifi-
cate safely in his pocket, Torben again went to sea, having
done his military service with the Danish marine. Sailing in
the banana trade on the Canary Islands and on South Ame-
rica gradually proved incompatible with the family life
which Torben had also established during the 1950s, and in
1957 he faced the consequences and went back on land.
For the next 30 years, Torben was a teacher in the Danish
Maritime Colleges, working first in Esbjerg and later on
Fanø where, among other things, he was involved in the
planning and construction of courses for men working on
offshore rigs and platforms in the Danish North Sea. Torben
did, however, also find time for activities other than those
relating to the Wadden Sea. He headed a maritime school
project on Mauritius for DANIDA for a number of years,
and later he was in Singapore and other places under the
auspices of IMO to assess their maritime courses.
Torben retired in 1987, but he is still preoccupied with
the sea, and has just finished the manuscript for a book on
Ove Gedde’s voyage to East India in 1618-22. The book is
awaiting publication by the Fisheries and Maritime Mu-
seum’s press later this year.
55