大象传媒

We travelled from my home in Malawi to Cape Town in September 1943, a journey which took five days by train. I was a girl of eight who had always lived with my parents in Africa, but now my mother and I were going to the U.K., leaving my father behind. During world war two, travel between countries was restricted to those with a compelling reason for their journey, in our case; we were needed to look after my grandmother who lived in Northern Ireland.

Travel Arrangements.
Travel arrangements were kept as secret as possible, to try to prevent the ship鈥檚 movements becoming known to the enemy. We were given possible places on a ship, but not the name of the ship, as all ships had their names painted out, so were nameless. The date and place of embarkation was also kept vague, and the destination in the U.K. was not given. There was, however, one piece of definite information given, and that was - only one piece of luggage per person permitted, and this must be light enough to be carried by that person.

We waited for about three weeks in a Cape Town hotel, my father disappeared for about half an hour every morning, coming back saying 鈥淣o news鈥�, until one day, suddenly, we had about three or four hours to make our final preparations and say our Good Byes.

The Ship
I now know that our ship was a former passenger ship adapted as a troop-carrier, and presume it had come from Australia because deck after deck was full of Australian troops, some of whom were ill or wounded. We were told there were five thousand troops, but perhaps this was an over-estimation. There was only a handful of civilians, with strict segregation of the sexes, men and older boys port side, women and younger children starboard. Segregation of troops and civilians was also enforced, doors to the troops鈥� quarters were firmly locked and there were many signs saying No Admittance. Even in the dining room we used, civilians had their own area; the only time we mixed with the troops was at the religious services held on Sundays. I expect fraternisation did take place, but I was too young to notice.

The old cabins had been taken away and we slept in dormitories which held sixteen people in bunks. There were three other children as well as me in our dormitory. We were the only people from Africa; the others had come from further East. As far as I remember relationships amongst the women seemed to be kept superficial, there seemed little communication; however there was some tittle- tattle, because an older girl in my dormitory told me that one of the women in a corner bunk near her had not slept for seventeen years. This was a source of great interest to me, and the only time I remember waking up during the night, I looked over at this woman鈥檚 bunk---- and sure enough, her reading light was on. I never found out if she had gone to sleep with the light on.

The baths which were allocated for us to use were wonderful, to me they were huge with enormous taps, so that the water gushed out at speed, in no time the bath was full, leading of course, to boisterous splashing and 鈥渟wimming鈥� until my mother鈥檚 patience ran out.

School
Some of the parents volunteered to take the children for school. I think it was a make-shift effort to entertain us because there were few books, and writing materials must have been in short supply, I do not remember anyone having coloured pencils or crayons. My mother spent time thinking up quizzes for the older children, and we also had spelling bees and mental arithmetic. We often played group games; I remember the Winking Game and Simon Says being popular.

Music
Everything on board had to be carried out quietly, so that we would not give our position away by noise floating over the sea. Sometimes a man came and played the piano for singing and musical games. I wonder if this man was one of the soldiers, he used to warm up by playing scales at speed and apparently effortlessly, which was a marvellous new sound to me. I learnt to do a kind of polka to the tune of 鈥淲altzing Matilda鈥�, and we marched around to 鈥淐olonel Bogey鈥� and 鈥淗earts of Oak鈥�

We learnt to sing the official version of 鈥淏less 鈥榚m All鈥�-----The Big Boys, who must have been about 12 years old, sang the rude version to Bless 鈥榚m All, but we younger children could never catch the lyrics, although we knew they had shock value with the adults.

At our Sunday services, when we were joined by the soldiers, we sang most appropriately, 鈥淓ternal Father, strong to save鈥� the soldiers must have had a well-rehearsed choir because I can still hear the restrained crescendo of male voices when we got to 鈥淥h hear us when we cry to Thee鈥�. When I hear this hymn now, at once I am back on board.

There were occasional film shows, but I cannot remember the content of any of them, however during the films the Big Boys used to groan and hoot at parts of the film-----I expect during the sentimental bits, and I liked and admired these signs of irreverence.

On deck
When we went on deck we had to be especially quiet, I remember looking closely at the life belts, and could just make out the name of our ship in black letters underneath the new white paint-----it was 鈥淪trathaird鈥�.

Part of the deck was marked off for civilian use by a canvas curtain, around which I could see the recuperating soldiers lying on day beds, reading and sitting around chatting to their friends, or playing cards. I was fascinated by these invalids-I would have liked to know what had happened to them--where were the blood and guts, the blood-stained bandages of boys鈥� comics, or the realistic war-wound photos of 鈥淧icture Post?鈥� Instead, here were well-ordered soldiers, dressed in clean clothes, looking quite ordinary, and the only bandages I could see were on the hands of one of the soldiers, and they were always pristine.

I longed to hear their tales of derring-do, but there was no chance of that, the soldiers used to move away gradually from the canvas curtain where I stood watching-I expect they felt uncomfortable having a small girl staring solemnly at them-there was no question of fraternisation, quite the opposite.

The journey
Our only port of call was Freetown, we thought we could have sent letters to relatives here, but this was not allowed, and they had no information about our whereabouts for the whole voyage.

After Freetown we sailed and sailed, it seemed for ever, there were people on board who told us we were west of the Azores, but I do not know how they knew this. During this time there were 鈥渟cares鈥� when the alarm sounded throughout the ship. When this happened, we went down to our dormitories and waited with our lifebelts for more instructions, luckily this was always the all clear.

One day when we looked out at sea, we found we were part of a convoy of ships, the children learnt the to recognise the various kinds of ships like corvettes, destroyers and so on. The destroyers hurried to and fro on both sides of the convoy, sometimes sailing away from us and disappearing, then reappearing from the horizon while the rest of the ships maintained a zig-zagging route. Then, just as suddenly as we had found our convoy, it disappeared again, and we sailed on alone. A few days later we could see land at last! A service of thanksgiving was held on deck, and the soldiers really let rip with 鈥淓ternal Father鈥�. Then the rumble of the ship鈥檚 engines slowed and we made stately progress until we reached docks; we could hear the troops cheering as we tied up.

Arriving
My mother and I looked out over the rail at the dock buildings, she was trying to see if she recognised anything, but I was completely taken up with something else. It was a sharp, cold November day, and suddenly I realised I could see my breath for the first time. I had read about it in stories, and here it was at last-but what a disappointment! It had been described in books as being smoke-like, one story even called it dragon鈥檚 breath, instead it seemed to be more like wispy steam -the stories had exaggerated wildly, my expectations were quashed.

The docks below us gave no clues as to where we had landed, but a rumour went round the passengers 鈥淚t鈥檚 Glasgow鈥�, but we did not know for sure until Red Cross workers came on board to confirm it, and help us with the rest of our journey.

What a journey we had had, from Cape Town alone it had taken almost four weeks, but the troops had been on board much longer, and had arrived safely after enduring a dangerous journey. I often think how painful it is to remember that some seven months later they were probably thrown into the melee that was D-day, I often wonder about their fate.

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