Mike Newton's Comments

Hi Mike,

Welcome to our site. We will miss you at our reunion but will post the pictures on our site for everyone to view.

I have been trying to email you through the web site shipsnostalgia for the past two weeks but didn't hear back from you. I guess the email did not get to you. Anyway, I am trying to get contact info on captain Hector Connell and Mrs Andrew Griffin to invite them to our reunion. I also need the contact info for Pentlandpirate to get his permission to post all the pictures to our site. In addition, I believe the love of his life is a friend of mine name Trang Trinh. We lost contact when we left Kensington 30 years ago. Would love to hear back from you soon. Chi

Hi Chi,

No, I never received your messages, until I got my “invite”

Let me introduce you to a few of my friends:

Carmel Fenton is 2nd Officer Griffin’s daughter. Carmel can put you in touch with Mrs Griffin.

Jo is Jo Wall, who made the film, “The Wellpark Story”. I know that some time ago she said it would be great to be able to make a film if there was a reunion in the future.

Christopher Long is a reporter and it was his family that invited many of the families to an English tea party when you first arrived in England. (You can see his reports on the link from
http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/guides/MV_Wellpark )

Janey Phung is Trang. I see you plan to have singing at the reunion and you should be advised Janey is a beautiful singer.

And I am Pentlandpirate. As far as I am concerned the photos belong to the people who shared this experience, so please feel free to use them as you wish.

I have added a link from the shipsnostalgia site so I hope it helps bring a few more “Wellpark” people to you. If there is anything else I can do to help, please just let me know.

Good luck for a great 30th Anniversary reunion!

Mike / PP

Hi Mike,

I'm glad to see you on here and I think I'm the only Brit VN on here. I'm based in South London since moving from the Kensington Barracks and was 4 years old when we got here.

I think the memoirs of yours or another colleague from Wellpark are fascinating. It would be a pleasure to speak with you some day.

I have also made contact with Jo Wall too and we should be meeting soon and to discuss a potential screenplay I'd like to develop.

My parents (Mr and Mrs Tong Van Tran) still get Xmas cards from Captain Hector and his wife every year.... such thoughtfulness.

Again, thank you so much for your efforts and the Wellpark crews support back in 78' and through the documentation both in the journals and online.

Wishing you the best in life and hope all is well.

Best,

Paul Tran

Hi Mike, thanks for the comments on the pictures. Now I know what Stewart Fraser and Graham McQueen look like. Is Andrew Dryburgh on the pictures you took? Did you see my comments? Chi

Hi Mike,

I spent an enjoyable few hours reading your letters sent to your family from onboard the Wellpark. You are blessed to be such a gifted writer. Your letters are historic and (as my daughter commented) are comparable with Samuel Pepys' diary on The Great Fire of London. In fact, I seriously advise you to consider approaching a film producer. Your adventures at sea would sell - as you so vivivdly described- , the danger, bravery, adrenaline, courage, exhaustion, perseverance, camaderie, bonding, heartache, loneliness and romance.
That would definently be criterias for a blockbuster!

Thank you Mike and to your colleagues for your acts of kindness. Special thanks to your dear mother for preserving your letters and artefacts to keep history alive.

God Bless
Anh-Chi

Hi Anh-Chi,

I was just one of almost 400 people on Wellpark who has special memories of that time almost 30 years ago. I think my letters to my Mum are a useful record of one person's experiences, but what excites me now is hearing other people's memories of the event, even 30 years on. I am delighted that on Chi's initiative this reunion site is filling up with new members, photos and information, more every day. You might encourage me to write a more complete record of the event, but it is you Vietnamese that made the journey, it is you who showed the courage from the outset, you who took the risks, and I urge you to write down your memories so that future generations can better understand why our world is the way it is.

30 years ago the crew of Wellpark knew nothing of the Vietnamese. You have heaped praise on us, but for those of the crew who have already been re-united I think I can speak for all in saying we have been humbled by the way you risked everything for freedom and a safe future for your children. The exodus of Vietnamese is one of Life's great human stories, that will probably not be fully appreciated in history for many generations.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your kind words. Myself & my family are most grateful to the Wellpark crew for the rescue. The letters & photos you've kept all these years are fascinating, & are a great record of such an important historical event for myself & my family.

Howie, 30 years on, I think it is time for all you Vietnamese to acknowledge you did something amazing for yourselves. We were just doing our job. You just made it easier for us by being such nice people!

Hi Mike,

Thank you so much for being such a great historian! Without your wonderful letters, photos and informations, this website would not be complete.Thanks for the memory.

Thuy

Hi Mike, this is Chi's & Thuy lil sis again. I'm just going to say "dito" to what they both said abt you. Otherwise Chi would say she's embarrass for me. Just kiddin :)

THANK GOODNESS FOR YOU & YOUR CREW!

Hi Mike,

You are up early! I went on the shipsnostalgia site, www.shipsnostalgia.com/guides/MV_Wellpark several times; however, I was not able to view the film clips on ITN Source. I read the written notes on what the clips were about. Is it me or have were the film clips remove?

Also, since the film that Jo made are no longer available for viewing, I wonder if she or anyone else in London has a copy of that film? It would be absolutely fantastic if we could show that during our reunion in August.

PS. May be you could change your family vacation destination to Orange County, California? Just a wishful thought :)

Have a great weekend!

Thuy

I left a voive message for Trang aka Janey. But I also know a few very talented people on our group i.e. Dr Hung who always come up with many good poems and aunt Nghia. Together they can come up w/good lyrics, the challeging part is to find someone to turn it into music. May be we can pay someone to do it. Will discuss that at our meeting tomorrow. Chi

Beautiful writting Mike. I would like to use your write up of "The rescue - etched on my mind" in our memory book. I though I emailed you a month ago about asking you to contribute to our book since you are so talented as a writer and also if you try to make it to the reunion. But I could not find it in my send email so I think I lost it some how. I will email you later. I have to go to bed now since it already past 2 am. Chi

G'day Mike,

I'll trawl through my archives, which I think have survived the migration, and see if I can turn up some photos. If I do I'll either try to post them on the site or email them to you, if you don't mind, as you seem to have a good handle on the Wellpark archives.

Did you leave the ship in Ulsan Drydock, Korea at the same time as me? I broke my leg playing football ashore there and paid of with the T/O Graham McQueen, Gary Pearce, and at least a couple of others, but I can't remember who.

Anyway, good to here from you and well done in helping to keep the Wellpark people together.

Cheers

Craig

Mike,
Here is a poem by Robert Frost, title "The Road not Taken"
I thought of you when I read this. Enjoy. Thuy

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Hello Mike,
Yes, I think I do have more but I have to troll through the rest of my old prints. They'll turn up periodically and I will post them on the site as I find them. The more I look back on it the more facts I can recall as items on the website jog my memory.
One of my colleagues here in Port Otago is Hugh O'Neill who was T/O on the Wellpark at some later date. Willie Fraser was apparently a senior cadet there at the time and Hugh says he relied on him quite heavily to keep the troops in order! Willie may have been the most Senior cadet. I will interrogate Hugh some more to find out. Maybe Willie will read this and come back to us with his take on it. I'm guessing that might have been Late 1979 or early 1980. I'll get Hugh to check his discharge book.

Cheers

Craig

Hi Mike,

I though you should know that Captain Connell boarded his ship on 4/13 and will not be back to land until sometime in July.

In his last email in April he wrote me: "I saw the message from Mike on the Reunion site however unfortunately have been very busy over the last week and with going away again on Sunday 13th will be busy finishing off things at home getting ready for that so I may not manage to get the addresses etc to you but Aileen will send them to you when she can.

If she can find a recent photo then Aileen will try to post on Reunion Site although to be honest neither of us is very familiar with computers as we use them for convenience more than as a hobby.

I expect to be back about second week in July as trying to extend the tour of duty a bit to make sure the Reunion trip comes more to the third quarter of my vacation rather than it being at the end.

I will take photos of the Painting as requested by Mike and also I will
bring out some digital images on a memory stick of the photos we have although some of it will take a bit of research after 30 years and I can leave the memory stick with you to copy down to CD or use as you wish to perhaps share with others at the Reunion or afterwards

In meantime thank you all again for the invitation to California and a
chance to meet with some old friends again as well as some new ones. Best Regards, Hector and Aileen".
Chi

Hi Mike, Been logging on to ships nostalgia for a while, seen the thread and here I am. Working beside another of the Wellpark crew, Steve Crowe, offshore in the North Sea. Will post photos when I get home.
Cheers

Ian Harvey

Mike, what happen to your blog "The rescue- etched on my mind for ever"? I can't find it any more.