大象传媒

To be sent all the way home from Nigeria on leave may seem unusual, but in those days the climate of West Africa was considered damaging to the health of Europeans and it was usual for people to work 18 months then return to the UK for 18 weeks recuperation. This continued in wartime, although we were warned not to expect 18 weeks!
We caught the train down to Lagos and boarded the "Thysville" at Apapa wharf. The ship was one of two Belgian vessels which, before the war, had been on regular service between Belgium and the Belgian Congo. Unable to return to Belgium they were doing great work transporting troops and some civillians between the ports along the coast of West Africa, from Freetown in the Gambia to Matadi in the Congo.
We were expecting to take on some more passengers at the port of Takoradi and then continue on to Freetown, so it was a surprise to be put ashore and taken to transit camp. We never new what emergency caused us to be stranded, we only hoped that it was not due to the sinking of another ship.
For about 4 weeks we were stuck, with nothing to do and nowhere to go. There was a YMCA canteen in Takoradi but it was too far to walk in the heat and humidity. A few times we travelled in a "mammy wagons" lorries with bench seats fixed across the width. It made for an interesting journey as they were nearly always filled to overflowing, poorly maintained, with balding tyres, loose steering and a driver who had often had too much palm wine.It felt like monthe before we were on the move again.
The authorities must have been almost as desperate as we were to find a ship to take us on to Freetown. The 'Dumana' claimed to be an RAF depot ship, but the RAF would have disowned it; it certainly wasn't a troopship, it couldn't even feed us, we had to take on board with us enough corned beef and biscuits to last the journey. It was the slowest ship I have ever traveelled on and would have been a sitting duck for a U boat, but thank goodness there were not so many about not that the Germans had lost control of Dakar. At least we were going in the right direction, albeit slowly.
At Freetown we transfered to the 'Highland Brigade' and it was good to get back to proper meals again. Before the war it had been on the South America run and was designed to carry frozen meat as well as passengers. It was now a troopship and the only drawback was the lack of deck space, something sorely needed in the tropics. After that it wouldn't matter as it would be winter before we rached Britain.
The journey through the North Atlantic was very different compared with when we travelled to West Africa; the ships still sailed in convoys with an escort but we stayed on the east side and the big surprise was that we put into Gibraltar.
There were quite a number of Italian POW's on one of the lower decks who were being dis-embarked. On the way I had done a turn guarding them and they had been trying to keep their spirits up by singing. They had good voices and sung well; but they knew that they were losing the war and they just wanted it to be over, - who didn't? While in Gibralter Harbour we had to guard against frogmen attaching limpet mines to the hulls and were ordered to shoot at anything moving in the water.
The journey from Gibraltar was uneventful and we were glad to find ourselves sailing up the Firth of Clyde past Ailsa Craig again. We carried on past Greenock up the river Clyde, past shipyards and factories until theriver was not much wider than the ship and from the upper decks you could not see any water unless you looked straight down over the side, it gave the impression of sailing through fields.
We tied up in Glasgow docks where we were shocked to find that the dockers were on strike.To strike in war time seemed to us to be almost treason when you thought of all the effort most of the population were putting in to winning the war, not to mention those who had died. The dockers must have had their reasons, but whether they were justified, goodnes knows.
The ships were soon unloaded as the Army had things well organised and we were paid up to date, issued ration cards and rail warrants for our destinations. From the dock lorries took us to the station for the final leg of our journies home.

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