COUPLAND, John

1) "To the Luit Coplaind - I.W.T.R.E - Amara

(Inland Water Troop. Royal Engineers)

Sir
I beg most respectfully and humbly to enform you that. Please sir I
don't no to speak in english. Fot that reason I cannopt say to you. Sir
now I am going to understanding you. There was sum newspaper lying all
over the room, after that I took that paper and (apt) it in the box in
yesterday. this morning I was cleaning the room by the super after
cleaning the room I told to super to take it away. Now if their was any
letters then why did he not take it away and keep in a good place. sir
Now what to tell you more he is always (causling) with me and (busing)
me. Now you kindly Please consider about it if there is my mistake than
that is your wish.

I have the honout of you faithfull servant


SAYRAZEK HOCK

2) Dumfries Newspaper - 1960
"After fifty years afloat, Captain John Coupland, master of M.V. "Marchon
Trader" has retires. He was born in Lochmaben in 1893, the only boy in a
family of six, and if he had followed his family's wishes he would have
gone into the ministry or medecine. But the sea was too strong a pull,
and at 17 he left home to serve his time "before the mast", three years
of which were spent in Australian waters.
He came home with the intention of taking his secons mate's ticket, but
was offered a job as third officer on the "Kelvin Bank", a meat trader
p[lying between the UK and Buenos Ires, so once again the wanderlust was
irresistible.
But fate took a hand - the First World War had started and early in 1915
the "Kelvin Bank" was torpedoed, so Joh went to Glasgow and gained his
second's ticket. Then followed a year's seafaring after which he joined
up in the I.W.T.R.E. in Glasgow and was drafted to Mesopotamia as a
second lieutenant. After demobilisation it was back to sea again as an
officer in the steam yacht "Cutty Sark" which was originally laid down as
a destroyer. This time it was a round the world trip.

FIRST COMMAND. Then came his mate's and master's tickets and in 1929 he
got his first command in the "Sheaf Crest", sailing out of the Tyne. For
the nesxt fifteen years he commanded various types of merchantmen trading
around the world, in the Baltic and the Mediterranean. In 1955, when
Marchon Products Ltd chartered the SS "Greenbatt" to bring phosphate rock
from North Africa, Captain Coupland was her master, so it was a natural
step to the bridge of the MV "Marchon Trader" when the chemical company
decided to builkd and operate their own vessel.
But it wasn't always just work and in the 'twenties the sea had a serious
rival in a young nurse from Sunderland. They married in 1927 and set up
house in South Shields.
Of their three children, a son and two daughters, only 15-year old
schoolgirl Anne is still at home. The elder daughter Jean is married and
lioves in New Zealand, while the boy, John, was killed at the age of 26
when the jet he was piloting disintegrated in mid-air near Cambridge in
1955.
Captain Coupland has settled down in South Shields to the life of a
landlubber, although he will always be "on call" as relieving master.