At times there was no shore leave. At Gib and Malta it was shortage of time, at Cyprus EOKA terrorist activity and at Singapore guard duty kept me aboard. At Aden and Colombo I did get ashore and Aden was fierce and fellow passenger, fair skinned Ginger Manning, had been warned to NOT expose himself to direct sunlight for long but went swimming at the NAAFI Club’s anti-shark net protected sea lagoon and burnt to a frazzle. The Ship’s MO gave him 7 days M&D and the Ship’s CO gave him 7 days CB! As the Fowey was leaving Aden a soldier held on to the gangway’s rails yelling, “You can’t make me leave, I’m not going!” Two Ship’s Policemen ran down and dragged him struggling and shouting back on board. It was soon discovered he was stationed in Aden and just wanted to get away so he was put ashore at Colombo for the military authorities there to arrange his passage back to Aden. From Colombo I sent my parents a large chest of tea and bought a fresh pineapple for myself. The tea arrived OK but the fruit made me ill.

Old sweats had predicted the Bay of Biscay would be stormy but it was calm as were the Med and Red Sea too. The Indian Ocean was terrible but everything was fine again in the Strait of Malacca and South China Sea. Meals for privates and junior NCOs were served in a large mess which ran the width of the ship. There was seating for around 600 and because we were so numerous, we were organised in four ‘shifts’ for meals, Red, White, Blue - and Fourth. We queued along the port side, collected a metal tray with food compartments, received dollops of soup, potatoes, meat, veg, gravy and pudding at the serving hatch, and dispersed along the starboard side to the long port-to-starboard tables firmly fixed to the deck. The bad weather in the Indian Ocean had the ship plunging deep and riding high and one lunch of braised liver, cabbage and mash, with steamed jam pud and custard for afters, I came in halfway through my meal ‘shift’ and found a seat on the starboard end of my table, when an enormous sea struck the Fowey sideways on, we keeled over to port and around 300 metal trays slid along the tables and tossed themselves onto the waiting queue of approximately 100 men, few of whom had any further interest in lunch.

I was kept fully employed during the long journey, starting off well below water line in the ship’s Linen Store. After a week I found myself three decks up, at the tail end of the Fowey, in the Ship’s Laundry which was as hot as the proverbial. There was a beneficial spin-off though, as the Indian sub-continent laundrymen cooked themselves a midday curry, which they shared with me. This mixed blessing lasted about a fortnight and I concluded working my passage on permanent guard duty for the final few days. Since by then there were very few troops left, this turned out to be a sleeping duty which I and my fellow guards attended to dutifully, day and night. On Tuesday 29th April, we awoke to find ourselves stationary and moored alongside Kowloon Docks. I was met after my epic 4-week voyage by L/Cpl Jimmy Mullin, who escorted me on a RASC-crewed lighter to Hong Kong Island and my employment with 56 Company RASC (MT).