in the narrow lanes and in the evening the same tired workers hunched up against the cold, would trudge home to the promise of food and warmth. The war did not seem to have had any effect on most of us youngsters anyway. Night after night there were the German air raids, that came in droves as the planes unloaded their bomb bays full of destruction and death on the helpless civilians, who felt the awful horror of indiscriminate bombing. Our ship the S/S Kirkpool 4,842 tons lay alongside Dunstan Coal Staithes bunkered with coal and ready for sea. The crew were all on standby, but some of us still lingered on in the local pub by the quay finishing off our beers till at last we tumbled out of our stuffy smoke filled bar into the crisp cold night air. It had an immediate sobering effect and then laughing and shouting we staggered up the gangway. Shortly after when all had made it on board on the 31st January 1942 a voice from the bridge bellowed out loud and clear: "Let go the main spring”, followed by “ let go fore and aft”. The lines gave a loud splash as they hit the water giving a sense of being severed from ones own Motherland and then the tugs pulled us into mid stream. There was a light hearted squabble amongst the sailors as we flipped a coin as to who should be first on the helm. The lot fell to me and I felt it a great honour to steer the ship from our home port. Though the visibility was poor I picked out in the moonlight the familiar landmarks as we glided down the Tyne. Away to Starboard the groyne bell tolled out the sombre warning of rocks. On the Port bow situated high on the rugged cliffs was the towering statue of Admiral Lord Collingwood its base flanked with four ancient cannons. These had once adorned HMS Sovereign (Collingwood’s ship and it was during the Battle of Trafalgar Lord Nelson exclaimed: “See how well yon Collingwood handles his ship”. Often as kids we had scrambled over these guns and fought our Trafalgars. All these familiar places, the rocks and the coves where I had played, I took in for the last time and then a gruff voice jolted me back to the present: ”Ten degrees to Port” he called, the bow responded and began to lift to the increasing swell. “ Steady she goes” he continued, whilst the North and South piers slid past, and soon we were off leaving nothing but the cold grey sea. The pilot shook hands with our Captain Kennington and wished us all good luck and a safe passage and then turned and eased himself down the Jacob’s ladder into the waiting launch and headed back to shore. Now we were on our own! The skipper gave a brisk command to alter course to North East by East, and then he slammed the telegraph to full steam ahead, with chief Engineer Burley answering with his bells in reply. The vessel shuddered and began to forge ahead and our destination would only be known once the Captain had opened his sealed orders which was to proceed to the west of Scotland. Ten days later we arrived safely with no sight of enemy planes, mines or U-Boats at Oban on the West of Scotland from where we joined a convoy heading down the west of England into the Atlantic heading South. Some days later The Cape Verde Islands appeared and the rest of the convoy suddenly turned starboard towards North America but we just continued all alone Southwards. How lonely it felt to see all those ships disappearing over the horizon whilst we were all on our own. Then amazingly a German U-Boat that had been waiting for a kill, miscalculated and surfaced dead ahead of us and then had to suddenly crash dive as we passed over where he had been minutes before. It was a near thing and very frightening! We released a series of depth charges from our stern and altered course. When darkness fell the Captain turned the ship about and retraced our path and so avoided a second meeting. The new course was held throughout the night until dawn and then corrected again to head for Capetown.

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