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This story was submitted to the People’s War website by Peter Quinn of Lancs Home Guard on behalf of Bill Dixon, and was added to the site with his permission by the staff of Blackpool Central Library.

My first deep-sea ship was the SS Grodno - an ugly double-well decked icebox rust bucket, which had been hijacked on the way to the scrap yard. I signed on as Assistant to the Chief cook, who had also escaped the scrap yard — a balding tattooed, beer- bellied figure of a man, whose knowledge of hygiene was matched by his knowledge of conversational English: every sentence contained ****ing this and ***ing that with great gusto, often invoking the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph!

We sailed on the morning tide out of Liverpool, to the convoy rendezvous point off Oban - a misty, grey, loch filling with all kinds of cargo ships. The only sound in the still mountain air was the shifting of the anchor chains, getting more comfortable, while we waited for orders.

In the Grodno, most of the stores were housed down aft, across a swaying fly bridge, to a canvass-covered hatch secured with bars and wedges. I then had to negotiate an iron ladder, fixed to the bulkhead — ten steps down, right over the propeller, carrying a huge aluminium container (also used for washing up pots and pans after a meal)- for flour to make the day’s bread. I had to retrace my steps back across the fly bridge to the galley.

We set sail the next day, in some disarray, for somewhere north of Ireland.

[The author of this piece has written a number of other contributions to the People’s War website. They are:

My last day ashore
My first ship — M. V. Wim
Jumping ship then the Ocean Volga
Convoy preparations
A Lancastrian in New York
Thanks Yanks!
Voyage around the world
I meet the "SS Grodno" and the cook!

He has also contributed two poems:

The SS Grodno — one more trip 1939
The last day of SS Kingswood]

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