大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Elizabeth Perez of Stockport Libraries on behalf of "David". It has been added to the site with their permission and they fully understands the site鈥檚 terms and conditions.

My Grandfather, who was a shipwright in the Merchant Navy, was a Hebridean he came from the Outer Hebrides. He left academy at sixteen and went to Glasgow and became an apprentice for five/six years. He became a shipwright and worked for P&O and various other shipping companies, and then eventually moved to Manchester Liners, who of course sailed from Manchester. He became the ship's carpenter.

He went right through the war, going backwards and forwards to Canada and the States, and never lost a ship once. People were scrabbling to get on the same ship as him. He was just a lucky man. I remember him telling me as a child about standing on deck in Liverpool Bay, where the convoy was getting ready to go, and the German submarines had got in, and he watched the ships going down in Liverpool Bay and his ship still wasn't touched. He got the B.E.M. at the end of the war, he didn't know what it was for.

He also slightly had the gift of the second sight. I can remember him sitting in a chair, he was on leave again. I was sitting on a fender because it had seats around. He was fast asleep and he suddenly sat up and said "I know when D Day is." No-one knew when D Day was. My Grandmother was ironing and she said "Don't be ridiculous", and my Mother said "Not in front of the child". He just said "I'm not going to give you the date. I'm just going to say Bertie is going to die and one of the boys is going to lose a leg." That happened exactly as he said. Bertie was the fiance of one of my Mother's younger sisters.

My Father eventually joined the Royal Navy via the Merchant Navy. He was determined like most men to be a part of that war. So he went into the Merchant Navy and he sailed with my Grandfather. He was an engineer. After he'd done a year in the Merchant Navy he could transfer to the Royal Navy.

I can remember lisening to the news every morning as my Mother plaited my hair. We ahd to listen to the news. We lost my Father for six months. I knew, my mother was very anxious and very devastated, because after about three months this huge huge iron trunk arrived with my Father's name on the top. It had a huge padlock. She got her brother to break the padlock off. The first thing that happened when they opened it was my Father's discs so she assumed of course that he was dead. She got in touch with the War Office and with as many people as she could. They couldn't tell her.

He was found in Bermuda. He'd had an accident and fallen down the hold and, they'd taken him to the nearest hospital, which at that time was in Bermuda. My Father was coming over on the "Liberty Ships", so they were going over to the States. "Liberty Ships" were built in the States and brought over here because of course so much shipping was lost. Because the was was on and he was in Amercia, all his papers had been sent back to England, he had no idea that this had happened, but he knew that they had taken his discs. It took six months before he could get on a vessel to come home. Of course in the trunk there were presents. My Mother opened it and there were presents for me, for my brother and Amercian underwear for my Mother. It was quite incredible. My Mother was demented. You didn't realise as children, they hid it so well. I remember her crying , sobbing pitifully, but it turned out alright. He wrote and there was great rejoicing when my Father came back. My brother had difficulty relating to my Father, he hadn't known my Father that well, but how much worse for children whose fathers were POWS.

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