The Mentor 21 - October 1971

Australian S. F. Fans

(Article)

I was born in the Army Hospital at Aldershot, England, on March 28, 1912. The reason for this apparently odd choice of hospitals is that my father was a member of the British Regular Army. So far as I know I’m the first seaman in the family since an ancestor, Roger Chandler, was hanged from his own yardarm for piracy quite some years ago. Like me, he was allergic to hard work. Like me, he was a good agnostic. He was Master of a small sailing vessel on the Mediterranean trade in the days when the Barbary Corsairs were making nuisances of themselves. His ship was captured by the Barbary Corsairs. He was given the usual choice, the Koran or the rowing benches, so embraced Islam. He then became a Barbary Corsair himself, rising to command. He was one of the victims of Admiral Blake’s grand clean-up of the Mediterranean.

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