John Robert Nairn
Job Description
Deck Hand, Relief Cook, Solubles, Oil Filtering
Period
1965 - 1969
John was born in Wickepin in 1935. His grandfather was a watchmaker. He schooled in Narrogin and his first job when leaving school was riding a bike, delivering meat for a butcher in Narrogin. He came to Albany in 1960 when he married, as he and his wife wanted to be near the sea.
They eventually had four children, three girls and one boy.
On the 21st October 1965, John started work with Cheynes Beach Whaling Company as a deckhand on Cheynes III. This was the day after Ches Stubbs had a major accident on Cheynes III and lost his leg. Reijo Simojoki and David Hopkins, who both worked on the chasers were neighbors and it was through them that he was able to get the position. He had no experience and just learnt on the job. He had excellent eyesight so was often sent up to the barrel to spot for whales. After two seasons on the chaser he transferred over to the whaling station, mainly for family reasons to be able to spend more time with family.
John’s work on the whaling station entailed working on the solubles plant and taking out whale’s teeth. He also did oil filtering with Andy Woonings.
Incidents remembered: Pulling a jaw to tooth tank to put into tank for boiling, hook slipped out and had to jump over the tank and landed on rocks at the bottom. If John hadn’t done that he would have ended up in the boiling water with the teeth. Next day there was a guard rail put into place.
One day on the towboat – hooked a shark which got tangled up under the propeller. The boat drifted for some way towards rocks – managed with great difficulty to free it before it drifted onto the rocks. (This all happened at night)
John Robert Nairn