Miranda Peters grew up in farmland suburbs of Ontario, Canada, which is a far cry from her current role as the Mission to Seafarers’ assistant chaplain at the London Tilbury Seafarers’ Centre.
From her home in Stoney Creek, Peters moved to Vancouver, where she worked for the Mission, and arrived in the UK about 16 months ago.
Now living in Poplar, an area of east London steeped in docklands history, she is seeing and hearing at first hand the challenges faced by seafarers in the modern era.
Welfare services
The Tilbury centre is run by the Queen Victoria Seamen’s Rest (QVSR) but involves an ecumenical collaboration of four Christian maritime mission societies — the Sailors’ Society, Mission to Seafarers, Apostleship of the Sea and QVSR, the latter established 176 years ago to support active and retired seafarers.
Peters says the seafarers do not care which organisation each of the four chaplains at Tilbury represent, their concern is simply that someone is offering them welfare services.
The fact that organisations behind the Tilbury centre are Christian-based appeals to many of the hundreds of Filipinos who visit the centre each year.
“The Chinese tend to be a bit shyer and wary because we are a Christian charity, but we have to keep pushing that we are there for all seafarers,” Peters says.
She adds that being a young woman in a largely male environment can be a challenge but she is well supported by the centre’s team of three other chaplains and two volunteer ship visitors.
For religious reasons, not all seafarers acknowledge that a woman can be a chaplain but Peters says she is shown respect.
She adds that chaplains exist mainly to listen if a seafarer has spiritual problems, but also to provide practical welfare services and advocate on their behalf if they are not paid or fed properly.
No matter how technological changes manifest themselves, a person is still a person with a heart, with problems, as well as a wife back home, a baby they haven’t seen, all issues that build up being away from home
Miranda Peters
Tackling the whole package
Peters says the chaplains deal with the “whole of a person” — hearts, souls, health and well-being, the whole package.
“No matter how technological changes manifest themselves, a person is still a person with a heart, with problems, as well as a wife back home, a baby they haven’t seen, all issues that build up being away from home,” she says.
The Tilbury centre receives a lot of support from the port, including coping with increased security where the port police have assisted the centre so it can now visit cruiseships.
Local church and other groups also assist, especially at Christmas, although the Mission is seeking to embrace more corporate backing.
The aim is for each of the team members at Tilbury to make between 40 and 60 ship visits each month. Satellite tracking and other services are used to identify when ships enter port.
SIM cards and newspapers
Chaplains arrive armed with SIM cards and newspapers — Filipino, Chinese and Russian — as well as some biblical-based texts, although Peters stresses it is not forced on anyone.
While onboard, fish heads and rice is not an uncommon meal for chaplains to be offered, although on one occasion Peters and colleagues were presented with an entire pig’s head on a platter.
“To them, it was a huge honour to share it with us,” she says.
To refuse is regarded in some cultures as rude.
But how do chaplains identify those seafarers with problems?
“It is about having a ministry of presence,” Peters says. “Sit back and observe is a skill I have been learning.”
Wifi remains a big reason for seafarers visiting centres because some shipowners still charge what Peters feels are “ridiculous amounts” for communications access onboard vessels.
But foremost, for many it is about time away from the ship.
We are taking ship visiting to another level by supporting the families after seafarers are home from the sea
Miranda Peters
“This is a home,” Peters says. “We aren’t going to kick them out. They can stay as long as they want. Every seafarer who walks through these doors gets a welcome, a tea or a coffee.”
Financial planning
She says one of the biggest issues seafarers want to talk about is financial planning, especially in Asian cultures, where a seafarer may be expected to care for not only his family but also for neighbours.
Particularly stressful is when contracts end and crew members return home with no salary for maybe three months, but are still expected to pay the bills.
“We are taking ship visiting to another level by supporting the families after seafarers are home from the sea,” Peters says, a reference to a project in the Philippines to help families of seafarers plan financially and get connected to healthcare and legal resources.
But she adds that decreasing leave time is a “huge issue”. Few even have time to use the new outdoor facilities at the Tilbury centre, which include a basketball court.
We are taking ship visiting to another level by supporting the families after seafarers are home from the sea
Miranda Peters
“Usually they come in, have two hours free to go shopping at [UK supermarket] Asda, go to McDonald's, and make my car dirty with all their hamburger wrappers,” Peters jokes. “Then they are gone.”
Often they seem tired before leaving Tilbury to sail overnight to a European port, where they load or discharge again, and have to deal with “customs and all the other people who come onboard and want a piece of them”, she says.
The QVSR has invested a lot of money, including hiring an interior designer, into refurbishing the Tilbury centre with a London theme. Pictures of Big Ben, red telephone boxes and a small shop with souvenirs are on show. No mistaking the location is near to the UK's capital city.
“Soon, all ships will have wifi onboard but our big draw is human companionship,” Peters says.
