When John Taylor joined the crew on board the HMS Caroline in Belfast back in 1968, he could have never imagined that the ship would be part of most of the significant events for the rest of his life.
John, originally from Birmingham, has a lifetime of tales about his time serving 29 years on the HMS Caroline - with marriages, births and even DJing at discos all reloving around the historic ship.
He is currently volunteering at the Navy museum at Alexandra Dock, preparing the WWI light cruiser for its public reopening in April.
Read more: In pictures: Historic HMS Caroline preparing to welcome public back after Covid
One of the prize exhibitions coming to the HMS Caroline for reopening is the return of the ship bell which John has a personal connection to as it is what his children were christened in.
Speaking to Belfast Live, John shared the story of 54 years of connection to Caroline, what its history means to Belfast and its future.
John said: "I worked my way up from being a stoker when I arrived and came out as a Chief Petty Officer Engineer on completion.
"During that time, my wife was a Wren aboard the HMS Caroline and we met on board - she was actually in the stores and I had gone down to get a change of trousers and that's where we met.
"We then got married and once she got pregnant, she had to leave the Navy so we then had our first child Joanne in 1976. We got her christened on board in the ships bell.
"We had our second child in 1980 and we got her christened on the ship and actually named her Caroline after the ship - my whole life has spun around the ship."
John was one of 12 men serving on the HMS Caroline at the time who married Wrens onboard. Petty Officer Willis can be seen in the pictures John shared of his daughter's christening with his wife (a Wren) and newborn baby.
He is part of the original Caroline Commardes group that worked to secure the funding to keep the ship in Belfast and have it transformed into a museum for others to enjoy.
"At that time, they were talking about scrapping Caroline after she was decommissioned and we said that there was no way we were going to allow that to happen.
"We were in Robinsons Bar and we thought we had lost the lottery funding as there hadn't been any word from them so we were drowning our sorrows.
"One of the wives must have got a call and told them to try Robinsons and the barman called us over and the next thing he said was 'how much drink can you buy for £14.8 million'," John laughed.
In June 2016, HMS Caroline was opened to the public as a museum ship and forms part of the National Museum of the Royal Navy.
He added: "I had always been keeping in contact and they said they were looking for volunteers so right up until 2019 when we had to close down for coronavirus, I was taking people around the ship.
"I've heard good reports back - probably because my knowledge and experience of the ship is something unbelievable."
John's daughters are not the only generation to have been christened in the bell, with his grandson Daniel having carried on the tradition in 2019.
"We are going to use her again in the near future as we have a granddaughter that we want to christen in it too - most of my family have been christened in it now," he said
He is "very excited" that the public will soon again be on board the ship that means so much to not only him, but the history of the city.
John continued: "I'm 72 now. When I joined the Navy I was 16 - my whole life has been in a blue suit as they say."
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