via Scott Plimpton
Alan Villiers was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1903, the second son of Australian poet and trade union leader Leon Joseph Villiers. Growing up close to the docks, watching merchant sailing vessels, he developed a lifelong love of the ocean, first going to sea aged 15 as an apprentice on a barque in the Tasman Sea. Villiers worked his way up to able-seaman, but after suffering a temporary injury he decided to become a journalist, working in Tasmania on the Hobart Mercury newspaper. He took six months’ leave from his job in 1927 and secured passage to Falmouth, England on the Herzogin Cecilie. Go to: Alan Villiers chronicle of the last days of merchant sailing