War was declared on 3rd September 1939, my Mother burst into tears at the news remembering, as she did, the horrors of the First World War when she lost a beloved brother, Patrick and many friends.

Having recently turned 19 I immediately volunteered for the Navy realising that I would be called up anyway and wanting to ensure that I got into the Navy and not the Army. My Father [Walter Walsh Webster] had been in the Navy and although he never went to sea that was my preference.

Within a couple of weeks I was in Portsmouth, stationed at HMS Collingwood in Fareham. A land based ship / barracks. I’d met a chap on the train going down who came from Walthamstow, Bob Sumner, and we got on really well. On arrival we were kitted out and did the usual square bashing etc. but I quickly found that you could escape work just by walking about looking busy, as long as you had a piece of paper in your hand, and you could go anywhere.

One of the classes we had was Knotting. In this class I met a Scot, he came from the farthest north of Scotland and was a fisherman. He couldn’t speak English only Gaelic and he was utterly miserable. The only time he was happy was in the knotting class, he could do them all blindfolded. Eventually the authorities sent him home, they decided he would be more use being a fisherman.

One day we were all asked if we’d like to train for something secret, I nudged Bob and suggested we gave it a go, we liked the sound of it and volunteered. That’s how we found ourselves learning all about Radar which was totally new and top secret. Another day we were asked if anyone liked music, myself and couple of others immediately volunteered but that time it wasn’t such a good idea – we had to move the Captain’s piano!

So after only two weeks training in RDF (Radio Detection & Finding), which later became Radar when the USA joined in, we went to sea. We were on patrol off Holyhead on a Patrol Craft, along the north Welsh coast. We had a competition to produce a motto for the ship. Someone came up with the winner; "On Beat – Never Beat".

Only 2-3 weeks later I was back in Portsmouth and we were all asked to choose between Home Service or Tropical. I quickly went for Tropical knowing that Home Service would mean the North Atlantic run and the Russian Convoys and I knew I couldn’t have stood the cold of either of those. So again, we were kitted out, this time with tropical kit and given the jabs for going overseas. [His daughter was told that although the family didn’t even know where he was, his twin, Patricia Walsh Webster arm reacted to the jabs he had].

So we set off in a Troop Ferry, a large cruise liner, down the west coast of Africa calling at Freetown and on to Cape Town. On the way, the Petty Officer stopped Bob and me and told us we would be on duty as gunners on the 4.7 gun on the stern. “Oh no”, says us, pointing to our Wireless Telegraphy badges on our arm, “We can’t do that, we are RDF Operators, we have to protect our hearing”. So we had a cruise for that trip. One day Bob came up with a bottle of Gin and between us we drank the lot – boy were we ill the next day, I’ve never drunk the stuff again. Apart from that it was a very nice trip which took us round the Horn of Africa, up the east coast, through the Suez Canal to the Med and North Africa.

On arrival in Alexandria I was based at HMS Canopus, another land based ship. After only two days I was in hospital having passed out on parade. It was diagnosed as Sand Fly Fever and I was in for about a week, it’s a very nasty illness as one of the chief symptoms is depression.

After that I was deployed to HMS Latona. She was a mine laying Destroyer. There were only 4 ever built, they were big ships with three funnels but could do 30 knots. We were not laying mines though but taking ammunition and food to Tobruk which was surrounded by the enemy and the only access to it was by sea. We only sailed during the dark phase of the moon and on our last mission, 25th October 1941, it was getting a bit late, the moon was coming up. Sure enough we were spotted by an Italian high level bomber. He dropped bombs all around us and one of them went straight down the middle funnel and exploded in the engine room and set the ship on fire. Unfortunately, not only did the fire on board cause us problems but all the cargo on the deck caught fire as well and began to explode – hot tins of carrots etc. were flying everywhere. We laughed about it later but at the time it was terrifying. We were finally given instructions to abandon ship – you can’t do anything without instructions! So the Whaler (lifeboat) was quickly lowered into the water but unfortunately someone forgot to re-position the bung and it sank! It had to be kept without the bung in while on the davits as water splashed into it and it had to be able to drain. Normally one can place the bung in position in the dark but in the panic it was completely forgotten. So there we were, a crew of 242 men, less the ones that had perished in the engine room, all in the water. Thankfully another Destroyer came along and picked us up and took us back to Alexandria. So there I stood on the quay in just shorts and sandals and the watch my father had given me. I was issued with more tropical kit and two shillings (about 10p in today’s money) and had two days “Survivor’s Leave” before being sent to serve on HMS Hasty.

HMS Hasty was an H Class Destroyer and we were on the Malta convoys, escorting merchant ships to within 5 miles of Malta. Once there we just cruised in a circle outside Valetta – we never landed – and then sailed back to Alexandria for the next one. One night there was a terrific storm that took all the guard rails from the forecastle, the anchor chain got loose and we had to try and secure it, but there were waves coming right over the bows and we got VERY wet. There were four guns; A, B, X & Y, two at the stern and two up forward. One of them was wrenched off the deck and deposited up beside the forecastle leaving a hole in the deck. When we got back to Alexandria we were sure we would get some leave while it was repaired. But they lifted off the gun by crane and bolted a plate over the hole and sent us back out with only 3 guns! The Malta convoys were bad, on one trip we had 5 merchant ships to escort, by the time we were only half way there we had lost the lot. We just turned round and went back to Alex.

One day we were deployed to repaint the hull of the ship. On pulling up the trestle we had been sitting on (you paint from the top to the bottom) we scratched the hull near the deck. I had my watch, that my Father had given me, in the breast pocket of my overalls, and leaning over to touch up the scrape out it slipped and down it went.

On another very stormy day we discovered that the aerial lead had come disconnected. I was delegated to climb the mast, soldering iron in hand, and fix it! At one point I looked down and could only see water. I stopped looking down and concentrated on what I was doing. I still managed to lean on the soldering iron and burn my arm quite badly but I didn’t drop the iron, I got the job done. The radars at this time were pretty useless, it was all a very new science. We could judge distance by the time taken from transmission to reception, but as Radar improved during the course of the war we were able to see something the size of a milk can at a mile distant.

We actually sank a German submarine one time. It came to the surface and surrendered and we picked up the crew. I got chatting to one of them, he spoke very good English and his view was that we should all be on the same side but fighting the Russians!

HMS Hasty was one of four Destroyers, including HMS Kelly, to visit Famagusta, Cyprus. Kelly’s Captain was Louis Mountbatten, the Queen’s Cousin (later Lord Louis). Kelly was the last to enter the harbour and in his usual fashion came in at a rate of knots and throwing Kelly astern to bring her to a halt. Captain D was furious and sent the Kelly out and told Louis to come in again “in an orderly fashion”. Later Kelly was sunk but Louis survived and after the War was killed in Northern Ireland by the IRA. (I went ashore in Cyprus and was delighted by the wildflowers; Freesias and others).

Whilst we were with the HMS Hasty we were involved in the Battle of Pantelleria against the Italian fleet. A smokescreen had been laid down and we were ordered to go through this to torpedo their Battleship Littorio. Unfortunately our steering gear jammed and we were more than exposed until the stern emergency steering was manned. During this time we were shelled by the battleship with 15” shells. Fortunately, their aim was not very good but the shells going over us sounded just like express trains [because they were going end over end – the result of excessive wear on the barrels due to the vast amount of use they’d endured]. The Littorio was sunk, whether by our torpedoes or not, or who received the credit, I never heard. [Note: Although the Littorio was badly damaged it was not actually sunk].

We did manage to have some fun, when things were quiet one of the things we did was race Cockroaches. We’d catch a few – every ship has them, they keep the water out! – and set them up to race along the deck, some guys would have a side bet as well.

There were two watches on this ship i.e. 4 hours on and 4 hours off. My oppo: Eric Organ who came from Exeter, came back from shore leave one day having had a skinful and asked me if I’d do his watch, the 12-4am, the worst one, so that he could sleep it off. Sure, I said and he settled down into, what was our joint bunk, where I should have been. During the watch we were torpedoed, poor Eric lost both his legs in that hit. The ship was in a bit of a mess the forecastle was blown right over the bridge, the ship having been hit in the bows. We tried to launch a Carly raft as a lifeboat, they’re about 10’ x 10’, but it had been painted so often onto the slope on which it was housed that it wouldn’t budge. Luckily another Destroyer came alongside and 150 men, including Eric, were rescued. Unfortunately Eric died [in Warwick Webster's arms] and we had to bury him at sea. That was 15th June 1942.

I was a bit shaky after losing two ships and was smoking about 50 cigarettes a day. It was decided I needed a break. I didn’t get leave, a 6 month duty ashore was the remedy and I was sent to Haifa to join Radar ops. I enjoyed that, it was very peaceful. I was driving a 10cwt. truck delivering “stuff” all around the Holy Land; Jerusalem, Gaza etc. [possible Pass for this in the tin trunk]. I took my time and enjoyed the views, on one occasion I saw a man at the side of the road, the blackest person I have ever seen. He was an Ethiopian and he was shaving with a piece of glass. We sat at the side of the road and shared a cigarette before we each went on our way. In Gaza they were selling Oranges, they couldn’t give them away, so I bought a sack for 2 shillings, took them back to base and we shared them. Another time two of us were ordered to escort a prisoner, a Brit, back to Alexandria by train. The train didn’t have carriages just open trucks but the weather was great. The journey took a couple of days each way. I’ve no idea what he’d done but he was alright, when we stopped at a station we sent him to get the tea!

It was while I was in Haifa that I met a chap (?? name) who was in the SBS (Special Boat Service – like the SAS). He told me how he worked as a sponge diver from a caique off the Greek Islands. He showed where the secret radio was on board and after a while he sponsored me and I joined them. We had some very hard training; one morning we had a 5 mile march out into the desert from which we had to make our own way back. The last 15 home got no breakfast! The next day the same exercise, we all hurried back and again the last 15 had no breakfast. It was all about toughening us up.

We were camping in the desert at this time, the sides of the tent were 6’ high but underground, and then there was the roof and a ridge. Along the inside was a rope, from end to end, and our pet Chameleon lived there.

On one occasion we had to load the bombs onto a bomber. They were on trolleys and we had to lug them across the airfield to the plane. It was incredible hard work and all about building our fitness.

Another training exercise was at the Bitter Lakes, there was a hospital ship moored there with a loading barge moored alongside. We had to carry bags of sugar up the gang plank and on board. You could only manage one as they each weighed about 2cwt! – it was all part of the training along with unarmed combat and the like. At one point we met up with some Italian POW’s, they were very relaxed and delighted that they were out of the war, they had rescued their musical instruments and gave us a super impromptu concert.

It was pretty tough training and we were taught to take care of ourselves and be self sufficient, so when someone “happened” upon a ham we took care of it. We buried in the sand under the tent floor, to keep it safe. Then whenever we were hungry we’d dig it up and have a meal, it kept us going for quite sometime.

I was out walking with my sponsor one day when a lorry came round the corner. Unfortunately the driver misjudged the distance and the size of the truck he was driving. He took out my mate and broke his pelvis. I went to see him in hospital in Haifa, where he was plastered with his legs wide akimbo but that was the end of my SBS experiences. No sponsor, no SBS.

I then went to live on Mount Carmel for a while working in the lighthouse attached to a monastery. Initially we stayed in a very posh hotel in Haifa town. It had a wonderful shower about 6 feet high, it was a real luxury, and I particularly remember having watermelon for breakfast, I’d never experienced that before. There were three of us at the time and we had to walk up from town to the lighthouse at night to work. We could hear the Hyenas calling from not very far away, nearly as scary as the fighting. My job was to identify the ships I could see going to and fro across the bay and get them to identify themselves. INT was the message, short for “interrogative”, i.e. “Tell me who you are and where you’re going”. There were two old officers in charge, they had been in the 1914-18 war and had come back again. They were chatting to each other one day and I overheard them, they were astonished by the fact that ships now all had a Canteen on board! One evening we were sitting in the lighthouse during a fierce storm when the building was struck by lightening. I saw the flash go across the room, the seaman who was on duty at the time listening out for ships was completely deaf for a week as a result.

One of the best bits of this job was that with the strong telescope we could also look down into the town. The local girls had a habit of sunbathing in the nude on their roof tops thinking they were unable to be seen!

All the while I had been in Haifa I had been on a list waiting for a ship to come in with a vacancy. Ahead of me on the list was a chap called Butterworth. His turn came and it was a mine-laying submarine! It was HMS Roqual and they needed a radar operator. Was I glad it was not me! Butterworth tried to go sick but the MO. wouldn’t have it and off he went. When he came back he said they had been to Sicily and were detected. They sat on the bottom and had 99 depth charges dropped around them before the enemy gave up. There had been an “Old Three Badger” (15 years service) on board who had marked on the bulkhead with a chalk, so he knew exactly how many there had been. Butterworth was a bit shaky!!

It was at this point that HMAS Cairns, a smart looking Corvette came into port looking for a Radar Operator and I joined the Australian Navy. I started on patrol with them going from; Gibraltar, across the Med, down the Suez, up and down the Persian Gulf, then on to Aden and Bombay and back again.

Life on board the Australian Cairns was very different to the Royal Navy. The discipline and general attitude was much more relaxed. One morning Jimmy, the First Lieutenant, came into the Mess with his cap on, the crew all stood up, as they should. “Ah, sit down” he said, “Well, take your cap off then” someone said, so he did and sat down and had a chat with us. That would never have happened in the Royal Navy where rules and regulations and society strata were still very strict.

The Captain at this time was very unpopular and frankly obese, his nickname was Bubble Belly, and we would shout the name through his porthole when he was in his cabin. He was an Australian Scot and if we detected a submarine he would only ever drop one “set” of depth charges, that’s only five. He clearly felt they were coming out of his own pocket! We were all delighted when he was taken sick and left the ship. The trouble began when sometime later we put into Alexandria and there he was on the jetty. To a man the crew all walked off the ship – and that’s Mutiny! Once we were reassured, by the 1st Lieutenant (Jimmy), that he was only a passenger and we were taking him to Bombay so he could go home we relented and came back on board. Had we been in the Royal Navy we’d have all been on a charge. (Later we were credited with sinking a sub.)

We were on the Bridge one evening when Jimmy turned to me and said “I’m going below for while, you know the ‘zig-zag’ (the pattern we were observing), you’re in charge, call me if you need me”. That was it, I was the Skipper!

It was while we were doing this Mediterranean patrol that we were, unusually, sent through the Straits of Gibraltar up the Spanish and French coasts to within 20 miles of the UK to collect a convoy to escort. When we turned away from England the Aussie boys were devastated. It didn’t bother me too much I would not have been given leave to go home if we had docked, but they SO wanted to land on British soil. When we got back to Gib. some of the men, including Dusty Miller went on a bender and I had to get them back on board.

We were really short of food when we put into the Persian Gulf one time and the chef went looking for meat. He reported back that what was available from the stores was actually crawling with maggots and he’d told the Quartermaster exactly what he thought of it. So Jimmy said we would go fishing. “Fishing” involved dropping a depth charge and catching all the fish that came up. Unfortunately that meant killing everything, including even Hammerhead sharks. We sat on the deck for hours gutting and filleting fish and then it was all frozen, we ate very well after that.

We put into Gibraltar on one trip and I went into the Cathedral because I’d heard that the Polish General Sikorski had been killed. I got chatting to a priest there and he gave me some books about Catholicism and I was very impressed. I’d become rather disillusioned by the Church of England, each Vicar that you met told a different story and had differing views, there was no consistency at all. I’d also had a friend on the Hasty who was a Catholic and we had talked about it a lot. [Joe recalled Warwick saying that what really persuaded him to look into Catholicism was the observation that his Catholic compatriots did not fear death like the others did].

We put into Bombay one time and I was, without warning, allocated a new job. I was back with the Royal Navy and had to stay in Bombay in charge of all the launches in the Harbour. There were hundreds of them. I was given an interpreter, Johnny a medical student from new Delhi, who could speak all the local languages; Hindi, Urdu, Gujarati etc. and he was very careful about mixing the various ethnic peoples as it could easily result in fighting if he got it wrong. (It was here that I met a man with six digits on his hands and feet, you wouldn’t have noticed as all was in proportion).

It was about this time that I got chatting to a priest and started taking Instruction into the Catholic church. It was all very familiar – I’d been taught all of it by my Mother already. However when I wrote and told her of my intention to join the church she was horrified saying “But I want Grandchildren”, I did explain to her that it would not prevent me from marrying and having children!

In the barracks we had a Dhobi Wallah, she was a lovely, Chinese lady and I followed her one day to watch her do the washing. She carried it all down to the river and selected a large flat stone, she never used any soap but just beat the wet clothes onto the stone and rinsed them in the river. The clothes all came back to us ironed and beautifully white.

I had a bit of a run in with a scorpion while in Bombay. It had got into my shirt during the night and when I put it on the next morning it stung me between my shoulder blades. I thought I’d die, it was far worse than any wasp sting. I went off to sick bay and they asked me what colour the scorpion had been. As it was a brown one they weren’t a bit interested and sent me packing, if it had been black apparently I would have been in real trouble.

It was at this point that I got some leave and I sailed home, it was the first leave I’d had in three years. Whilst in Gibraltar, on the way, I collected a bunch of bananas, (a whole stick) which was something that had not been seen in England for years. As I walked through London with this over my shoulder people stared in disbelief so I began handing them out to the children some of whom didn’t know what to do with them. When I had arrived in the UK I’d only had tropical kit, a bit thin for English weather and I had to BUY my own standard kit but by the time I got home I had Lumbago and I spent most of my one weeks leave with my back to the fire trying to feel better and warm up. I only weighed 8st. at this time, my Mother said I looked like a kid from Belsen. I did however, get to Woodford to be entered into the Catholic church.

After my leave I set off for Devonport whilst waiting for my next ship. I shared a flat in St. Just with 5 others and we did have a bit of fun. The Mess was divided into Seamen or Signals. We fitted neither category being Radar Men. We had Wireless Telegraphy badges as Radar was still very secret. Consequently we could get into either dining area so if the meal was good we could get ourselves two dinners!

Another time someone came by a ham, I don’t remember how, but he wanted to get it off the base to a friend. We knew that the guards at the dock gates would check any box we had and start asking awkward questions so we had to come up with a ruse. Someone had the bright idea of catching the cat that patrolled the docks and putting it in the box. It was then “shaken” about a bit before we set off to the dock gates. Of course the guards demanded to know what was in the box, when we said it was a cat and please don’t open the box he’ll run off, they didn’t believe us. Once the box was opened the cat, who by this time was somewhat beside himself and rather agitated, burst out of the box and fled. We were suitably outraged at what the guards had done and stormed off to “recapture” said cat. Sometime later we returned with “the cat” (ham) safely in the box again and fortunately the guard had not changed, we demanded to be let through without them opening the box and letting “the cat” out. The guard was still feeling rather sheepish and let us through and the ham was away!

It was not long after that that some of us were put on a train and sent off, we had no idea of our destination, to meet up with a ship. We assumed that would mean a stop in London which would have been good but the train never stopped it went straight up the country all the way to Rosyth on the Firth of Forth in Scotland. It was heaving with servicemen, there was hardly a seat to be had anywhere and it was a long tedious journey. And so I met HMS Indomitable a huge Aircraft Carrier, I couldn’t believe the size of the thing, it seemed like a floating barracks. My job now was in the ADR (Aircraft Direction Room), it was one flight up in the superstructure. The room had a huge opening window that overlooked the flight deck. We were always far too busy to attend any “Call to Duty” when everyone was expected to be on the flight deck but we had a superb view of it and often watched the Sunday morning service and parade with the Marine Band playing. My oppo. at that time was George Bailey and we got on very well, he came from Brighton and we met up after the war when Lucy and I went to visit him.

Our first trip was from Rosyth, Scotland to Sydney, Australia via; Scapa Flow, through the Med and Suez Canal to Bombay and Perth. When we put into Bombay I looked up Johnny and the others I knew and we had quite a party, it was great to see them all. Whilst in Bombay my Oppo. took a motorboat one day, moored up to the harbour wall and went into town. Now Bombay has a 13’ tidal fall and the tide had been in when he moored. I’m not sure whether he had forgotten this or had been very delayed but when he returned he found the motorboat out of the water and hanging against the harbour wall. He was in a bit of trouble!

On the way to Perth I had managed to get a letter to my cousin Deirdre (my father, Walter Webster’s sister Rosaline’s daughter) who lived in Perth. We had never met but when we moored in Perth I was the only member of the crew who had a blonde meet him on the quay! The others were very impressed. [Photo in tin?]

Sydney was to be our base and we moored in Circular Quay. There were hundreds of people on the quay, they were there to offer lodgings for us sailors. Among the crowd were Ida and Tom De Burgh, Lucy’s Aunt and Uncle and they were allocated myself and three others. The De Burghs were staunch Protestants and were horrified to find they now had two Catholics under their roof. Of course things got even worse when Lucy and I started seeing each other.

By this time in the war Germany had surrendered but Japan was still a problem and we were deployed out to the Pacific to assist the US Navy. As we arrived to join up with them they sent us a signal: “Welcome and best wishes from the biggest Navy in the World”. Not to be outdone we responded: “Thank you for your welcome. We send you our best wishes and hopes for success, from the Best Navy in the World”. There was no reply!

We had joined with the US Navy to assist with the landing on Okinawa. It was a horrific battle. By then the Kamikaze bombings had begun. One crashed right outside the big picture window of my office. Fortunately it was closed during “Action Stations”, but I was working at the time writing up the log of what was happening, the result was a scrawl all the way down the page. By this stage I had learned to write in any way needed to get the message of what was happening to the Officers: mirror fashion, upside down and right to left. When I was on Radio Watch I’d keep one radio on the Home Service so we could hear Vera Lynn and the other one for working.

One time while on the Indomitable we were served up some really bad meat, it had been curried to try and disguise it but it was disgusting. As a result when “Divisions” was sounded (a call to duty when everyone fell in on the flight deck) NO-ONE arrived, not a single seaman. Next thing “Clear Lower Deck” was sounded, this could be serious so everyone trooped up and fell in. The Commander asked what the problem was and a Radar Op. stepped forward. He fancied himself as a Barrack Room Lawyer and he told it straight and explained what had upset everyone. For his pains he got six months inside as the instigator, they had to find a scapegoat to deal with a Mutiny. We didn’t mind, he was a thoroughly unpleasant individual. He utterly refused to wash and as a consequence had appalling BO. At one time we were so sick of it we bundled him into the washroom and stripped him and scrubbed him down with a deck scrubber. It didn’t seem to teach him much though, but it made us feel better.

One night a seaman was taking a “Fanny” (large metal churn) of cocoa around to those on duty. He opened a door into a cabin and, as always happened, the lights automatically went out. The ship had just come back from having radar fitted and in doing this holes had been drilled all over the deck. The seaman stumbled in the dark and the very hot cocoa went all over the floor, through the drill holes and onto Admiral Vian, fast asleep and naked in his cabin below. With a roar he very soon appeared on deck wanting the sailor’s blood. He was still stark naked except for the tattoo of a snake that began at his ankle and wound it’s way around and up his body to finish with a head peering over his shoulder. We young sailors had never seen anything like it and stared with open mouths desperately trying not to laugh. The Admiral was far from amused!

We had an exercise alongside the US Navy one time. There was an instruction sent out that the convoy was to turn 20º to starboard at 3am. At 3am the convoy changed direction all except for one US Destroyer. It came straight at the Indomitable, took all the paint off and bent the forecastle. The suggestion was that the Captain either never received, or lost the instruction! Equally, all US aircraft had IFF – Identification of Friend or Foe, but they still frequently shot at each other.

One time there was a problem of sabotage onboard. There were three turbines and one of them got sand in it. We were stuck in Sydney Harbour for sometime while the turbine was rebuilt, no-one ever found out who did it, or how.

About this time we were deployed in the battles of the Japanese Islands and it is not a period I wish to call to mind. However, I was on board HMS Indomitable when she took the surrender of Hong Kong by the Japanese, our Captain spoke Japanese. I watched the official ceremony from my office high in the superstructure. The Japanese Admiral, a small, solitary figure, walked the length of the flight deck carrying his sword on the palms of his hands. Despite all the horrors perpetrated by the Japanese during the war I found I actually felt sorry for him.

It was about this time that Lucy and I decided to marry and that was enough for the De Burghs to pack up her gear and tell her to go. She then stayed at the nurses home at the Princess Alexandra Hospital [Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children] where she worked. We were married on 15th October 1945 at the Cathedral in Sydney and I was given one weeks leave. Our honeymoon was in NSW National Park [Royal National Park?] and was soon over. When my leave was up I reported back to the Master at Arms (known in Navy slang as the Genti). He said kindly: “away you go, but come back before … (not sure of the exact date), we are sailing home, don’t you dare miss us otherwise you will be on a “fizzer” and posted as a deserter”. We left at the end of October 1945.

I was demobilised on reaching Plymouth and was issued with civilian clothes and a rail ticket to get home. Lucy sailed for England on the HMS Victorious a smaller aircraft carrier with many other brides and arrived in Plymouth in August 1946. We had not seen each other for nearly 10 months.

The winter of 1946/7 was bitterly cold and Lucy saw snow for the first time. We lived at Torwood with my parents and sisters until Tommy Sapsford built us a house on Wellington Hill, which we named Billabong. Houses were restricted to 1,000sq ft. at this time and this even included a square of tiles outside the front door. I didn’t like Tommy’s first plan and drew one up myself, which was accepted. The house cost the princely sum of £1,000.00, it had wood block floors and central heating (very high tech in the 1950’s) fired by an Ideal boiler. The dining room had French windows that led onto a terrace across the back of the house and along the kitchen side overlooking the garden. Under the kitchen end was a shed and above were coal and coke bunkers. Coke for boiler and coal for the open fire in the sitting room. We finally moved into it in the early 1950s with both Anthony and Clare and then Joe came along a couple of years later.

Acknowledgments:
Clare Talbot
Anthony Webster
Joe Webster

One page in the series The Websters of Ashleigh