大象传媒

This story was submitted to the Peoples War site by Jas from Global Information Centre Eastbourne and has been added to the website on behalf of Mr Morris with his permission and he fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions

I was 8 years old at the outbreak of war and my parents were working in Malaya.
I was at school at Temple Grove, Uckfield and my parents had to decide whether to risk arranging for my brother, sister and I to come out to Malaya to join them or to leave us at school in England not knowing when we would be able to meet again.

Whilst my parents were in Malaya, holidays from school were spent with our guardian who lived in Eastbourne. However, as Eastbourne became a danger spot for bombing my prep school agreed for my sister, brother and I to spend our holidays at the school.

Eventually, my parents decided to run the risk of their three children coming to join them in Malaya by convoy. As my sister was 13 years old, my brother 11 years old and I was 9 years old, a responsible person had to be found to see us to Malaya.

We were lucky that the fianc茅e of an employee in my father's firm in Singapore had also decided to come out at the same time and she agreed at the age of 21 to take responsibility of seeing the three of us to Malaya.

We left London on the first night of the Blitz, 6th September 1940, and joined the "City of Paris" at Gourock, Scotland, and left in a convoy approximately 7th September 1940. A few days out the Captain of our ship decided it would be safer for us to leave the convoy as we would be able to go at a faster speed than if we remained with it.

The Captain of the nearest Royal Navy ship agreed and so we broke off from the convoy and headed to Cape Town. Shortly after we left I believe the ships in front and behind us were torpedoed.

As we docked in the Cape Verde Islands the Royal Mail ship "Andes" was leaving and as she got out of the harbour she too was sunk. During the voyage my brother went down with scarlet fever so we were quarantined which continued after we arrived in Cape Town until he was better.

We eventually left south Africa by the ship "Tasman" and arrived in December in Singapore. After spending some three weeks with our parents, my mother accompanied us to Perth in Western Australia by the "Centaur鈥� and we remained in Perth until 1945 when we returned after the War in Europe had ended.

Sadly, the Japanese sank the 鈥淐entaur鈥� when she was being used as a hospital ship. We were in the Indian Ocean on the "Orontes" when Japan capitulated. My father had been captured in Singapore and spent time as a POW in Changing Jail and on the Burma Siam Railway. He rejoined us in September 1945 in England.

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