This letter was sent to my grandmother Mrs. Peddie to tell her that The Ministry of War Transport had informed them that my dad’s ship had been sunk by enemy action and while there were fatalities my dad was safe and waiting transport home. I would never have been borne if he had not come home. My nana used to tell me it was the most important letter that she had ever had – she kept it in a tin box and got it out to look at often.
My dad was a prolific writer and wrote about every merchant ship he sailed on. He had great pride in his service to his country and wore his medals with pride. He always felt that the merchant seamen were not duly recognised for their service – and unfortunately he had passed by the time they put up a statue in Liverpool – a dock he visited very often. My children wanted their own copies of his sea adventures and he painstakingly wrote them out for the two of them. He gave his medals to them and got copies and miniatures for me.
One of his favourite tales was about a ship having an infestation of bedbugs and everyone throwing all the mattresses overboard! He used to laugh and say that the old mafia saying of ‘going to the mattresses’ took on a different meaning for him.
His books are a direct record of his time at sea and the ships he sailed in. They make fascinating reading. When he passed we had a plaque put on a beach head bench that included the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem ‘Have you ever stood on the bridge at midnight- not the bridge of a babbling stream but the bridge of an old tramp steamer deep laden and broad of beam’.
My birthday is 6th May (1951) and I’m 74 this year and with it being the 80 anniversary of VE day on 8th May I thought it would be poignant to share this information about my dad who survived being ship wrecked..
