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This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Mairi Campbell of the ´óÏó´«Ã½ on behalf of Mrs Nell McFadden MBE and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the sites terms and conditions.

I was 12 and in school when the war started in 1939. I left school at 14 just after the Greenock bombing in 1941. Gourock had also been bombed at the corner of Farber Street and Cardwell Road when three members of my family perished.

I started work at 14, we were right in the middle of the war then with the black out and the River Clyde was a choc-a-block with ships of all kinds and people of all nationalities.

My father who had been in the First World War and the Merchant Navy worked in the shop in the Greenock Torpedo factory and like many other working class men was a heavy drinker, he loved meeting people and loved company and we had all sorts of nationalities in our house who came from the ships, but they came and moved on, but there was one man who stayed his name was Frank Glover and he was the Master At Arms on the Argentinia which for a time went from the River Clyde to America and back, he was a big burly friendly man who came from Liverpool and had been at sea for years.

The reason I speak about Frank is that when he got to know us he always brought a big wooden box full of all kinds of treats. There were all sorts of things to eat like tins of ham, salmon, tongue and Sugar and others and piece of meat, butter all sorts of goodies that not only were rationed but mostly non existent. We were in the middle of rationing and my mothers eyes used to light up as did our own when Frank appeared with his box of treats. My mother always shared it with my Gran who had lodgers. You can imagine the lift it gave us and how we enjoyed the treats and I can remember the first time we ever saw the silk stockings was when Frank brought them from America.

At that time we sometimes painted our legs because we couldn’t get a hold of decent stockings. My mother handed them out and we all thought we were the ‘Cats Pyjamas’! Silk stockings indeed.

Of course Frank’s ship was eventually moved to another route and at one time he took my young brother on holiday to Liverpool and in fact he wanted to adopt him but my parents wouldn’t hear of it!

Like all good things, Frank’s ship was eventually moved and although my parents tried to keep in touch for some time, but like many things in wartime life changed and the correspondence stopped.

Most of the players in this wee story are long since gone now and Frank was our friend from the sea. A lovely man and like many others he loved the sae and never feared it.

Like so many people in our lives he was our ship that passed in the night.

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