Who’s idea was it to have a reunion?

[Mike Newton]

Who’s idea was it to have a reunion?

What was the catalyst that brought a few like minded people together with a desire to rekindle the extraordinary bond originally forged in a chance meeting in the South China Sea almost 30 years before?

No one who had been part of that encounter could have forgotten the events of the first stormy night and the amazing two weeks that followed it. But since then, over the intervening decades, the 395 people who were on “Wellpark” in October 1978, carried their memories with them as they settled far and wide across the world’s surface. Inevitably there were little clusters, formed by the pattern of permitted migration into countries like the USA, Canada and UK. Within family groups, communities and friends, the word ‘reunion’ was probably raised in conversation a few times, but it took until 2007 before a close group, inspired by Chi Pham in California, decided they would make a reunion a reality.

Unknown to them, at around the same time and 6000 miles away in the UK, there was a chance conversation between a student film-maker and her colleague at London’s Brunel University. Joanne Wall was in her final year of film-making studies and needed a subject for a short film. That wasn’t even in the back of her mind when she just happened to ask her work colleague, Howie Luong, what had prompted him to come and study in the UK. It was a simple question which might have had a simple answer, offered in conversation rather than out of intrigue or interest. But to her surprise the answer was considerably more complicated and lengthy than she expected as Howie gushed out his story of how he, as a young boy, had escaped from Vietnam with his family, and at the point of death, was rescued by a British ship called “Wellpark”. Having posed the question, Joanne suddenly discovered she had opened the door on a wonderful, untold story. She was intrigued and wanted to know more. Slowly it dawned on her that this might be the perfect story for the film she had to make.

But Howie only had the faint memories of a four year old boy, and the passed down story from his parents: no photographs, documents or film reel from 30 years ago. Joanne knew that if she was going to make a film she would have to do her research. She just had one name to work with, the ship’s name, “Wellpark”, so she wrote to Denholm Ship Management who owned the vessel back in 1978. Fortuitously her letter found its way to The Chairman’s PA, Margaret Dalziel. She was aware of a website forum www.shipsnostalgia.com which many old seafarers were using to share stories of their experiences at sea and so in May 2007 she posted a note requesting anyone with information on the Wellpark rescue of the Vietnamese to contact Joanne Wall. It took until 30th July for Andrew Dryburgh, one of the ship’s lifeboat crew, to spot the entry. Joanne was able to interview him and get a first hand account of the rescue.

It was four weeks later that a bored Mike Newton, also one of Wellpark’s cadets, was playing at putting words in Google, to see what they would bring up, and just happened to put in ‘Wellpark’. In seconds the search engine came up with a list of articles featuring that name. Hitting the first link he was shocked to see that it was a newspaper article concerning the recent passing of Andy Griffin who he remembered was Wellpark’s Second Officer.

Having read this, and now rather unsettled, he clicked on the second link. This took him to a website he had never heard of before called ShipsNostalgia but straight away he found himself reading Margaret Dalziel’s posting. In it he recognised Andrew Dryburgh from his username. When Mike emailed Andy he mentioned he still had over a hundred photos of the time when the Vietnamese were on Wellpark, newspaper cuttings and letters he had written home about the event: ideal material for Joanne. Andy encouraged Mike to contact Joanne straight away.

The photos, magazine and newspaper articles, and letters had to be copied quickly. Joanne had a deadline to submit her film. Promptly every available slide, magazine and paper article, and letter was scanned and copied to disc and sent off to London.

But duplicating the pictures from 29 year old, dusty, 35mm colour slides into a digital format can be a slow process. Without professional equipment it can take a long time per copy, time in which you become very familiar with the detail of each picture. For Mike, this process only refreshed the memories, so that having copied them he didn’t want that to be the end of them. Stood on “Wellpark” back in October 1978 Captain Hector Connell had asked the young cadet to act as ship’s photographer and record the event, and he had taken as many photos as his limited film supply would allow. But it was more than two months before he returned to the UK, and by then the story had gone ‘quiet’. The photographs he had were duly processed and stored away.

29 years later they had now been copied to digital format. He can’t explain why, but he decided to post them on the photo sharing website, flickr . Out of the blue, first one, then a trickle of emails emerged from the ether, people who claimed they were in the photos. One of them was Chi Pham.

The rest, as they say, is history. The connections were made: a chance conversation in a film studio, a bored moment playing with Google, and someone spotting a 29 year old photograph of themselves on the internet. All came together as an extraordinary chain of unconnected events that led to a reunion 30 years on from a chance meeting between a British ship and 346 refugees escaping from Vietnam in 1978.

[Thuy Pham AKA Bich Thuy]

That's is a beautiful and precise story of how our reunion came about. Thanks Mike for keeping this website going.

Warmest regard,

Thuy

[pat griffin]

Also on the 2nd of August, Andrew Griffins wife was back home, after sitting through the night at the hospital while he died. On that day someone called Joanne Wall rang out of the blue and asked to speak to Andrew. A few hours too late. The Wellpark was brought back to our family's memories, and my daughter used the internet to find out more about her father and the big part he played in the rescue. Since then many people have contacted her to say they remembered her father and what a positive role he played in their lives.

[Carmel Fenton]

Yep I was absolutely devasted by the death of Dad but finding out more about the rescue and meeting all the wonderful people has really helped me. I did spend a ridiculous amount of time on the web looking things up but Mike really helped me find out so much more than I could have hoped for.

[Angie Nguyen]

I've always been a firm believer of fate & destiny; your recount shows how 'coincidence' works magically as we cross each other's lives again. The internet, when used appropiateIy, is a wonderful technological tool. I do remember Mike's email 'out of the blue' through another Vietnamese website & how it unravelled to finding the shipsnostalgia then his Flickr (photo sharing website). With excitement, I emailed my family in the US & asked to spread the word to all our Wellpark family. It was then Chi Pham, having recognised herself in the photos, contacted Mike. Preparations for Wellpark's 30th Anniversary Reunion, instigated by Chi Pham & facilitated by many around the world, was a success in August 2008.

The creation of this website, and many people's contribution, means our wonderful story will never be forgotten. It is also a means to never lose contact with each other again. I have since met Andrew Griffins wife in August 2009 as she travelled from Newcastle to London. Pat Griffin brought alive Andrew's memories by thoughtfully bringing along artefacts & Wellpark Memorial Plaque presented to her at the August 2008 reunion. My children greatly appreciated the history lesson and warmed instantly to Pat's playful nature.