Committed cruiser still going strong at 80

Norm Seller

Eighty-year-old Norm Seller is a confirmed bachelor and a confirmed cruiser. The former 10-pound Pom turned Queenslander was on his 69th P&O cruise when we met last year.

But Norm is way short of the record. He reckons Wilma, with more than 100 trips to her name and a regular table in the dining room, is the one to beat.

Norm, who hails from Wales and saw action at D-Day - "That wasn't a cruise" - says he never gets seasick. Having spent his 21st birthday going between Dover and Calais, he says after the Channel nothing could be so rough.

He follows a strict shipboard routine, shuffleboard and quoits by day and then the late dinner sitting and straight to bed. But he doesn't have a favourite liner and has lost count of the number of back-to-back cruises he has completed.

P&O keeps tally of his bookings with them, but he has also been on Russian liners. His longest trip was 59 nights on a Russian boat, visiting Asian ports.

A former wharfie, he told the captain: "I don't like you, I don't like boat owners." On disembarking, the captain unloaded nine cars he had bought in the East, prompting Norm to apologise for insulting him. "You're actually a second-hand car dealer."

Norm doesn't mind captains these days, because as a multiple cruiser he is automatically invited to the captain's cocktail party and handed out a bottle of bubbly for being such a regular.

He trades jokes with the staff and vintage French champagne for a slab of VB. Add in the cans of beer he wins at beer quoits on deck and Norm gets by quite nicely on his all-inclusive fare. As a pensioner he appreciates paying up front. "The food is tremendous," he says.

As long as the beer keeps flowing Norm will be back for another trip.