TRAVEL TO BOSTON

HOW DO I GET THERE?

Virgin Holidays (www.virginholidays.co.uk; 0344 557 3859) offer a five-night package to Boston, including fights from London Heathrow, staying on a room-only basis at the Fairmont Copley Plaza from £885pp. Price based on two adults sharing, departing February 3, 2016, and includes taxes.

He gave us a Becks beer each. Clowns, said Rolo. The day-work on the deck became more pleasant as the weather warmed. Everyone wore work shorts and went shirtless. The sun took the stark white shock off my skin, first pink then red then a pleasing light tan. When the sun was strong and there was little chance of rain, the whole deck crew was turned out to start chipping the rust and old paint off the decks with little hammers. I found it absorbing work, squatting like a chimp among the sailors, all of us with goggles on, chipping away, making little patterns – lines, swirls, pictures – then chipping them all off: chipping, chipping, chipping, each of us lost in a world of our own design. Most people enjoyed chipping. Spread out on the wings from the hand chippers were the air chippers: this was a coveted job for the more experienced. A pneumatic chipping-hammer was connected to the air-line that ran along under the flying bridge and was handled by a sailor who squatted on the deck, running the hammer along the rust and paintwork.