A.K.A.

SAILOR BOB

The Archive of Barney Bear is the culmination of Sailor Barney Bears lifetime of adventure on the seven seas.

From the South China Sea to the warm oceans of the Americas via the ports of India and Africa Sailor Bob has been collecting treasure for his chest, a lifetime of collecting whatever caught his nautical eyes. Once his sea legs had gone and his land legs had returned Sailor Barney loved nothing more than to visit the honey pots of distant lands while on shore leave in search of secret treasures.

Now having hung up his bellbottoms and sowester Sailor Barney had decided to sell off his traesures and retire to the mountains of Maine where he intends to live out his old age rearing bees and making honey.

But and this is an amazing but, Bob has decided he wants to tell all the stories of his life on the high seas. You might have already read a few when looking at his treasure but there are some that he just wants to tell. What makes this amazing is that Bears can't write, the claws do get in the way but mostly they just have never needed to. Barney learnt at sea, its not unusual for Seabars to be able to read and write on account of the long boring periods at sea with nothing to do. You can't make honey in the middle of an Atlantic gale but you can read a book.

Bears love telling stories, fact.

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Ulyanovs last train ride and the FSB No1’s from St Peterburg to Moskva

Bears are known for their practical minds, big hands and sweet tooths but not many people know that Bears have fantastic language skills too. Sailor Barney Bear  his father being Russian from Kamchatka and his mother from Alaska spoke English, Russian and Hindu he learnt from an old Black Bear he worked with for a while in the Indian Himalayas.

Bears need to be able to speak each others language otherwise the engine rooms of most ships would have been even more chaotic than they already are and because of this need to talk and the fact that most Bears liked to talk non stop even when sleeping it was important to have a few language skills under your hat if you were a Bear going to sea. Every engine room of every ship, whether it be a tug on the Thames or a Tramper working off the coast of South America, was filled with the sounds of Koalas, Pandas, Grizzlies’ and Black Bears swapping stories and tales from their adventures at sea in a mixture of languages that mostly only the Bears could decipher. Occasionally even Indian Sloth Bears worked on the high seas but mostly they were cooks or medical officers and never ventured down into the engine room let alone anywhere near the boilers.

Having a father from Kamchatka was extremely handy indeed to a young bear starting out on a lifetime at sea, but it wasn’t only at sea that Sailor Barney  found his Russian skills to be helpful. Indeed as time went on Sailor Barney Bears Russian language skills kept Barney Bear in work for many years, stoking Locomotive Engines for the new “Ministry of Railways in the Soviet Union”. Which came in handy at a time when seafaring engine stokers were in less demand thanks to that dirty smelly diesel fuel so many shipping lines switched to after the second big war of Sailor Barney Bears lifetime.

It was on one of these many land locked journeys that Sailor Barney picked up one of his most treasured possessions from the Soviet Union or Russia as Sailor Barney Bear always would call his fathers country of birth. This fine painting of a Russian marshaling yard was given to Sailor Bob for services to the motherland for a small job he had done keeping the engine fired carrying the body of a very nice man on his way to his final resting place at a rather grand tomb in Moscow. SailorBarney had known the kind intelligent gentleman and had rather liked him when he had travelled with Sailor Barney on a train across Russia just after all the troubles had ended. There is even a portrait of the nice gentleman and the train in the fine painting the Ministry Head Commisibear had presented to Sailor Barney in a ceremony right in front of the very train shed in the painting. Sailor Barney also has a very grand portrait of the nice gentleman Sailor Barney Bear had got to know which he picked up on one of the many long trips when Sailor Barney Bear had stoked engines on the Trans Siberian Express, but that’s another story for another time, maybe.

Most Russian Steam Locomotive engines at that time were tended by smaller Asiatic Black Bears on the fire plates and it was Sailor Barney Bears cousin Paval Bear the Asiatic Engineer who helped him get his most important job working for the Ministry of Railways in the Soviet Union.

Paval was a stocky little black bear, who wore the White V sash of the Asiatic Engineers with pride. The sash was meant to indicate to all the other Bears that the Asiatic was a truly Honorable Loyal Party Bear. And indeed Paval knew how to party especially after a long hot shift on the run from Moscow to St Petersburg keeping the engines fired of the Red Sleeper. Most Fire Stokers No 1’s, as they were known in Russia, enjoyed the warmth from the locomotives fire but what they enjoyed even more was laying back on a pile of coal in the open air of the tender or on the roof of one of the carriages and counting the stars visible in the clear dark black skies over Northern Russia. What made this even more fun was watching the stars over head and the grasslands fly by while sinking a bottle or two of finest Carpathian Medovukha and eating Kishka, cooked intestines stuffed with meat and grain, delicious cold and very popular with Ashkenazi Bears from the East.

Sailor Barney Bear had felt like he was in need of a few months of the Russian cold winter after stoking the engines on the liner SS Ozarda for working for months the off the coast of East India. The SS Ozarda sailed from Calcutta to the island of Ceylon carrying letters and parcels back and forth for the British rulers in London. Barney Bear was rather excited to be working on the Ozarda as it was only a few years before his first voyage on the Postal Liner that the ship had became famous in the London papers for carrying that rather dashing Bear Lawrence and his motorbike to Akaba on the Red Sea from Suez in Egypt. Where that flashy Bear started one of his most daring Arabian adventures ever . Barney Bear would have liked to have met that young Bear, Lawrence, he loved his headscarf and sandals, but like all Bears he loved Lawrence’s’ motorbike the most, so cool.

 The British – Indian (Bear) Steam Navigation Company was a grand old master line of the seas and a good place for a Bear to get work but the heat  and spicy diet of the Indian sub continent did not readily agree with Sailor Barney Bear and the call for the cold was making him homesick for some fresh salmon, cold honey vodka and snow.

Sailor Barney Bear worked in the engine rooms of the BISN Co. on and off for most of his working life as a Seabar , in fact he was on duty for the BISN on board the SS Dwarka when it made the last ever voyage around the Persian Gulf of a British owned liner, but that’s yet another story for another time.

Sailor Barney Bear arrived in the autumn in Sankt Peterburg after weeks at sea working his passage on the passenger liners sailing the trading routes between Calcutta via the Suez Canal to the Port of London where he docked with a cargo of tea and timber. Then onto Russia via Finland, finally arriving as a passenger on the ferry across the Baltic from Helsinki. It was cold and Bears love the cold.

For the most of the remaining Autumn and the start of the harsh cold Russian winter Sailor Barney was known as Fire Stoker Bear No 1,or FSB1 for short and had been assigned by the Commisibear to the Fire plate of the same sleeper locomotive with Paval Asiatic Engineer Bear working as Lead Fire Stoker No1 or  LFSAB1 for not so short!  

The Red sleeper ran back and forth between Sankt Peterburg and Moskva the capital of the new Russian CCCP , the route eventually became known by the nickname all the Bears used that worked on the Sankt Peterburg to Moskva line, The Red Arrow Express, the Bears knew it as the Red Arrow,  on a count of the fact that its carriages were red and it went bloody fast, like an arrow. Why some stupid Town bear, probably a Koala, had felt the need to add Express to the end was a mystery to all the Bears that had worked the line.

Sailor/Stoker Barney Bear and Paval or FSB1 and LFSAB1 as they were known to the rest of the crew of the Red Sleeper , shared the work on the footplate keeping the locomotives huge engine burning and drinking the Medovukha that they kept cold by strapping  crates to the snow plough fitted to the locos front end. The only problem was getting a bottle, Paval had to climb on the outside of the loco hanging onto the guide rail with his strong Asiatic claws (Known to be the strongest of all bear claws) while the FSB1 kept the engines running at speeds up to 71 mph !

It was over a bottle of Medovukha that arney Bear had first chatted with the nice gentleman Ulyanov in the restaurant car of the Red Sleeper and then many times afterwards on the journey over night leaving at 22.55 from Sankt Peterburg arriving Moskva 09.25.

Mostly Ulyanov travelled with a sleuth of very intense slightly odd, clever shabby young bears and cubs, who made lots of noise and drank lots of booze when the train first departed Sankt Peterburg but after an hour mostly they just smoked and read their books and newspapers. These were city bears not much better than badgers, a bit excitable and always arguing about nothing.  FSB1 Sailor Barney Bear liked these young bears except for the gnarly Bear from Gori that always travelled with Ulyanov on the Red Sleeper.

Ulyanov was an intelligent Bear Sailor Barney Bear could tell but his friend was a fighting Bear more use to the pits of his hometown in Georgia than discussing whatever the Town bears talked about

Fighting Bear drank as much as he liked of Sailor Barney Bears and Pavals hard earned Medovukha but Ulyanov Bear only drank when Sailor Barney Bear offered and was always very appreciative of the two hard worker bears generosity. After all there was plenty of Ararat and Honey Vodka on board the Red Sleepers which Fighting

One of the last time Ulyanov had spoken to Sailor Barney Bear, he told him that he and Paval should be proud of the working tradition of Bears on Russian railways and that we were shining examples of what we could all do when we worked together. 

On the very last time Sailor Barney Bear saw Ulyanov it was a much sadder day, no singing or dancing but lots of drinking. It seemed, or so Sailor Barney Bear was told, Ulyanov had not been too well for a number of seasons and had in fact died from something called Gonnabeara! Sailor Barney Bear had no idea what that was but he did hear many years later when working on the TSE that Ulyanov had in fact been poisoned at his vacation Cave by one of his inner sleuth. Sailor Barney Bear had an idea who that might have been, but that’s another story entirely.

Apparently it seemed that Chairbear Ulyanov had spoken fondly to his comrades in Moscow about two workers FSB1 and LFSAB1 he had come to know travelling on the Sankt Peterburg to Moskva overnight on the Red Sleeper Locomotive. When Ulynov had died some bright Town bear thought it a grand idea if Paval and Bob were the Fire Stoker Bears on the U127 Locomotive that was to carry Ulyanov in his box from his vacation Cave in Gorky back to his office in Moscow, strange place to leave a dead bear thought Barney.

And that’s how Barney Bear became a FSB No2, Hero of the Mother Land , he’ll show you his medal if you can find him a bottle of  Medovukha but be careful Barneys not a show off he might be a bit shy so better make it two bottles. But he is proud of the pretty painting he received the same day he  and LFSAB No2 got their medals. 

It shows the Moscow marshaling yard when they took Ulyanov on that cold winters day, with huge portrait of Barney Bears nice gentleman friend hanging over the steel doors of a train shed that the very U127 that carried his box back to his office is waiting to enter.

Strangely Barney Bear heard later from Paval that many of the young town bears and cubs went back to the woods and had not been seen since except for Gori Bear, he went on to be the new Chairbear but suffered from the same problems as Barney bears friend Cyril the Bi- Polar bear suffered. But Cyril never hurt even a bee and he never drank all the Medovukha thought Barney Bear. He never liked that Angry Fighting Bear, not one little bit, nasty Georgian nutter (B*****!!) 

You might have heard the expression before but for Sailor Barney Bear this was no saying !!!!. 

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