Let’s roll out welcome mat again for sailors

Dear Past,

Thanks for the lesson. Dear Future,

I am ready.

A YOUNG council bloke was amazed when he heard we used to have civic receptions for our arriving sailors, of all nationalities, especially the Americans, mainly because there were more of ’em!

Sadly, we went through an era of neglect, not simply because of the 11th of 9th, we just stopped the contact.

The then mayor Tony Mooney along with incredible people like Elliot Hannay would put together great civic receptions, and then myself and two great mates would take it in turns having 20 or so sailors over to our homes for a barbie, all supplied by us … because we loved the city and wanted to make our new mates welcome.

So many ask why and the answer is there’s a few reasons. Firstly, it’s the right thing to do. We North Queenslanders are friendly people and these sailors have not been home for months. In fact, some of the ships in those days had even been in conflict and we were their first port. Coming to a home environment was wonderful for them.

Although I dislike the finance side as it really shouldn’t matter, some detractors may be interested. These ships spend a considerable amount of money here, in many, many ways.

One of the last ships to come to paradise – where I may say the council did a dreadful job in their welcome (that has since been addressed, I hope) – only came because of the Tony Mooney welcome years before.

This is a fact, as we had many sailors and even the skipper, in the shirt I gave him, over for dinner.

He made a point of saying he was the XO on a ship that came here years before, and he asked the Admiralty if he could drop in. Drop in!

It’s time to try again. Now it is true security has changed and sometimes we only have a day’s notice of the arrival, but that’s enough. After all they would be here for four days on average, so our city and homes could be open.

Remember dial a sailor, it was huge … for dinner!

Again, security does change things, in some ways, but happy, welcoming North Queenslanders never change.

So to our new young council execs, who have the incredible honour to take this wonderful city into the future, talk to Elliot Hannay and those who were there.

We’ll reinvent, and prove once more how wonderful and friendly this City Without Strangers truly is.

And how about the air force? We have the F/A-18S and often the Globemasters, and also our mates on the wallaby track, all who come here to share this place in a winter’s paradise and, yes, I wanted to mention it because our city looks just so great!

PS: Looking at an old case where I keep special memories, I have nearly 40 unique coins given to me by ship captains when they arrived, or came to dinner, and they’re just the ones that I met!

Let’s welcome everyone home.

PSPS: Being the first Friday of the month coming up, it’s buy a stranger a coffee day, and Saturday, it’s exactly six months since the gates, the rage of the Ross.