QE2's Female Crew - work in progress

[Andy Holloway]

While not exactly QE2 Female Crew, these are the only photos i have of Nepalese Female security MAAs. This was taken on QV at an 'at sea' Sunday lunch Curry BBQ. My mouth is watering just looking at the spread on offer.

Following the change from NUS crewing in 1986, the MAAs were initially European, then in 1998 the first Nepalese MAAs began with Cunard, initially as a short term 'contract' and then, moving over to be permanently employed via an agency, as 98% of Cunard crew are. Firstly they were all male and then when 'gender for gender' searching came into force we had our first female Nepalese MAAs.

I remember one day when QE2 was in New York 2003 or 2004, come all aboard for crew, which was an hour before sailing in those days, we had one of our Nepalese Female MAAs missing. Checks were made onboard plus all ship announcements, but no sign of her. The ship's agent and CBP made all their usual enquiries, police, hospitals etc but came up blank, all we could deduce therefore was that she had 'jumped ship'.
Later we found an email address in her possessions and i emailed it to ask that, whoever this addressee was, if they knew her or where she was, would they reply just to let us know she was safe & well, sadly i got no reply.
Several weeks later, on a TransAtlantic crossing, i got talking to a passenger who turned out to be an attorney who had close links with the Nepalese community in Chicago, apparently it is quite large. He took her name and details, plus a photo and offered to make enquiries when he got back to the USA, sadly he was unable to find any news of her but kept trying for a year or so.
He was quite convinced that she would have been 'fed' through the Nepalese underground network to a place of safety and given a new identity, joining the huge number of 'illegals' in USA.
She was a lovely girl and i often wonder, to this day, exactly where she is and what she's doing, sadly i'll never know. 

[Rod]

Cunard employing "The Ghurkas" Love it!

Anyway my additions to women at sea:
Nurses Angela "Polly" Perkins. Pam Critchley, Mary McDonald (At the time she was on board, she was Senior Nursing Sister in the Soton Office.)
I see that my first wifes name came up. Wonder who did that?

[Andy Holloway]

Cunard employing "The Ghurkas" Love it!

Anyway my additions to women at sea:
Nurses Angela "Polly" Perkins. Pam Critchley, Mary McDonald (At the time she was on board, she was Senior Nursing Sister in the Soton Office.)
I see that my first wifes name came up. Wonder who did that?

While the majority of the male Nepalese MAAs were ex Ghurkas, they were not all and certainly not the females!
On one ship I was on, Sun Princess, one of my security team was a Nepalese ex Indian Navy submariner!

[Lynda Bradford]

While the majority of the male Nepalese MAAs were ex Ghurkas, they were not all and certainly not the females!
On one ship I was on, Sun Princess, one of my security team was a Nepalese ex Indian Navy submariner!

Rod or Andy do you know when Cunard first employed female security guards on QE2.  Rod were they employed in the 1970's?

Cunard employing "The Ghurkas" Love it!

Anyway my additions to women at sea:
Nurses Angela "Polly" Perkins. Pam Critchley, Mary McDonald (At the time she was on board, she was Senior Nursing Sister in the Soton Office.)
I see that my first wifes name came up. Wonder who did that?

Rod thanks for these additions, would they have worked on QE2 in the 1970's or later.  Many of the nursing staff's names came from Willum's list of crew mates.  The others are FM and some of these mentioned other nursing staff crew.  If you can remind me your wife's name I can check who mentioned her name. 

[Lynda Bradford]

Quote from Janil

.....in 1982 when the ship was commandeered for the Task Force, non-British nationals were unable to sail and female laundry staff (several from Liverpool) volunteered to return to their former positions onboard. They were collectively referred to as the Steam Queens and I do wonder if any information on their service was collated.

A little more about the Steam Queens that sailed to the Falklands with the ship from David Humphrey's

  Yes, I remember these ladies. The normal laundry concession crew could not sail as they were Singaporean or Malaysian and did not have British passports.  So several female crew, most of them as you say from Liverpool, signed on. I do not know if any information on them was collated. But they certainly had ‘presence’ and it was impossible not to notice them. After the ship had taken Fifth Infantry Brigade to South Georgia we brought home the crew of three sunken ships: HMS’s Ardent, Antelope and Coventry. The 3 RN crews and the QE2 crew put together a Sods’ Opera one evening and I recall the Scourse ‘steam queens’ laughing as a group, some of them very loudly.

Judy Carpenter also responded:

I worked in the Fleet Personnel Department in Southampton before joining QE2 as Captain’s Secretary in Bayonne, New Jersey for the 1979 refit and stayed at sea until 1984 including the Falklands voyage in 1982 for which I am the proud owner of the South Atlantic Medal. From my recollection there were only 20 ladies on board for that voyage (Bureau staff, Nurses, Stewardesses and Laundry Ladies).  I have remained in regular touch and meet up with the Bureau Assistants from my time on board and have passed on your details for them to get in touch direct. 

David Humphrey's also thinks there was around 20 female crew on the ship when she sailed to the Falklands. 

[Andy Holloway]

Rod or Andy do you know when Cunard first employed female security guards on QE2.  Rod were they employed in the 1970's?

Lynda,

It depend on how you define 'Security Guards'. If you mean in similar capacity to what the Female Nepalese & Filipino girls do now then i'd say around 2001/02. But if you mean females on the Security Team then there were a  couple of Europeans, [Brits] onboard as MAAs when i joined QE2 in 2000. One was an ex GMP policewoman who had been medically discharged, later left to drive a tram in Manchester.

Earlier than that when 'gender for gender' searching first came into Cunard, i was on Vistafjord and we had two ladies from a Security Company in S'ton sail for a month or so specifically to do female searching. We also had two Nepalese (ex Ghurkas) from an agency as part of the crew for male searching. This was in the days, pre Twin Towers, when the gangway was only manned by the Quartermaster on 'loan' from the Bridge, once he went back to do pre sailing checks it was the Security Officer and/or Deck Hands who checked passengers on & off. 

How times have changed, some years later when i was 'down-under' with P&O Australia, the Security team consisted of 2 Security Officers (1 days & 1 nights), 6 nights Security Personnel mainly Kiwis (bouncers), 2 night Responsible Service of Alcohol (RSA) personnel, 2 female night CCTV operators, and 10 Indian Security personnel who mainly ran the gangway or gangways but did all ship logged patrols as well. So a Security Staff of 22, but of course it was operating out of mainly Sydney up to Noumea & Vanuatu, but occasionally Perth up to Indonesia & Komodo, so pretty understandable.   

[Rod]

The first lady SO's I can remember worked for Securicor, which was the Co that Cunard used. I think they started in the low 70's. They were on board for the "Cradle Cruise" because one of them took my camera to the pyramids. Prior to that the MA's were mostly ex police or large sailors. Chief Security was a gentleman named Bill Cross a former Met Superintendant. He ended up by marrying one of the Securicor girls! After a number of years Cunard took over their own security. Probably when " Bob the Bomb" came on board, soon to be joined by "Plastic Pete"
Lynda my first wife was Lorraine Harris a Steiner Beautician/Cosmetologist

Quite frankly the Security Dept left a lot to be desired until "Bob the Bomb"came on board!

[Lynda Bradford]

Thanks to Andy and Rod for adding this information on the female security officers and the changes to the security team over the years.

[Lynda Bradford]

Today we have more information from Maureen Kragten Munsch who was a Stewardess onboard QE2 in the 1970's.  It is good to get an insight into working on the ship. 

I joined her in 1970 prior to that I was on the RMS Carmania a really happy smaller ship (also Cunard).

At that time I was Assistant Stewardess, which meant we were assigned to clean the various staircases and elevators.  I also worked in both the 6 and 7 deck Pools.  One Pool had Saunas the other had Turkish Baths with a Massage Parlour.  There were about 6 of us assigned to these duties and we all lived in a section off the Working Alleyway.  There were 4 bedrooms in this section with 2 to a room, upper and lower bunks and a Central Shower area.

Eventually, the longer I worked on the ship I elevated to Stewardess starting off on 5 deck.  The longer you were on the ship the better section of the ship you got to work in.  It was a constant move around of working in different sections and each time you moved your cabin as well due to people going on leave.

Hope this is of interest.  I do still have various old photos and memorabilia from that time but due to the fact that I recently moved its a matter of finding everything.

Thanks for all the good work you do to keep the memories alive.

[Lynda Bradford]

It was good to receive an email from Janis Hale this morning with a little more information to add to the female crew topic. 

You are absolutely correct in that I worked onboard the QE2 for 3 years from 1977.  I did join as a Pursurette and was promoted very quickly to Hotel Officer but unlike others who had been promoted was retained onboard QE2.
 
I have many fond memories of working onboard – I remember some mischievous moments too with the dentist, Lisa Middlemiss – like others onboard totally shocked when she returned from shore leave announcing she had married the bands drummer!  Do you know of Lisa’s whereabouts now as I’d love to make contact with her.
 
I also remember Patricia Sparks – she was another Hotel Officer working onboard QE2 during my time but didn’t see her mentioned anywhere??  There was another lady who used to act as the Captains Secretary when Lynn Waring was on leave, but I can’t remember her name, Deena somebody perhaps??
 
Good luck with the project – I look forward to hearing more.

[Rod]

Dien Ginn, not sure of the spelling.

[Lynda Bradford]

Jane Nilsen had sent a copy of the Crews News from 31 May 1982 that I have posted in the Crew Falklands topic. Brilliant that the QE2's Female Crew topic continues to bring us snippets of information.

[Lynda Bradford]

Although not QE2 or even Cunard, what an achievement by Celebrity Cruises who had an all female bridge and officer crew team to celebrate National Woman's Day in 2020.

The article mentions only 2% of the World's Mariners are women. However Celebrity has raised the percentage of qualified women on its navigational bridges from 3 per cent to 22 per cent.

Cruise Adviser article:
https://cruise-adviser.com/celebrity-cruises-announces-all-female-bridge-and-officer-team/

I am hoping that we can get more information for this topic on QE2's female crew.  If you have information of names, please post.

[skilly56]

Good to see a Kiwi in there - 3rd Officer Cassie Mead and I sailed together quite a few times between 2015 - 2017.

She also has sailing experience on the same tall ship as my son.

Skilly.

[Rod]

In the article, a lady named Sue Denning was mentioned
I think she was Cunard at one time....not on the Cruise Staff though.