In 1936 a young lad named Edwin, aged 16, begged his father to let him go to sea.  For many years the family breadwinners had been fishermen.  In the North East where he lived the depression of the thirties was only at the beginning of recovery and jobs were still scarce.  His Dad agreed so he joined the Merchant Navy.  He spent the next three years at sea, back and forth to Brazil and Argentina each month, although a couple of times the ship ran the blockade during the Spanish Civil War.  The times he seemed to enjoy the most were when off duty in a Mediterranean port.  He used to wander around the yachts watching the rich and famous people enjoying themselves.

After three years he got fed up and decided to go back home to live, but in 1939 with World War II getting very close he joined the Royal Navy.  After a few weeks training he was drafted to a destroyer in the Home Fleet.  Nothing spectacular happened while he was on this ship but he jumped off a gun and had to go into hospital as he had injured his feet.  The ship sailed off and he was left behind.  It was sunk and all hands lost.
 

He was then sent to another destroyer and did some trips to Russia.  During the summer they were sent to protect a convoy going to Malta.  At that time Malta was suffering greatly.  Of course, once they had passed Gibraltar they were bombed constantly by German planes and after three days the destroyer was so badly damaged, the rest of the convoy left them behind.  After a period of time, at around five in the morning, the ship was torpedoed.  In a very short time the men were in the sea.  Edwin, because he was a good swimmer, stayed in the water while some sailors were on the rafts.  Late in the afternoon he realised that some of the ship’s crew were missing, among them a young Welshman – his closest friend.

Edwin carried on swimming but as it got nearer to evening he suddenly thought of his childhood days and how his mother, a staunch Salvationist, had taken him and his two brothers to the Salvation Army to which most of his aunts and uncles belonged.  Here his mother loved to sing at the top of her voice and wave her tambourine.  Then it came into his mind of how as a little boy of seven he had gone out to the penitent form to give his heart to Jesus.  While this was going on in his mind a plane came overhead and all the men were terrified as they thought they were going to be bombed again  Some were crying out to God to save them, others were just hoping that it would go away.  Edwin thought too that they were going to die and said to God, “God if you will save my life I will spend the rest of it serving you.”  The plane flew off leaving many relieved men in the water.
 

Later on a hospital ship arrived, picked them up and took them to Sicily.  There they were declared prisoners of war.

Their Captain, a highly respected man, known by all as a Christian, was taken to be interrogated by the Germans.  Following this he gathered his men together and held a service of thanksgiving that they had been rescued.  I believe that nearly two hundred men survived out of a crew of roughly two hundred and twenty eight.

They were then taken to a prisoner of war camp in Northern Italy, near Genoa, where they stayed for about a year.  Here they had a really good Camp Commandant.  They did not have to work but food was in short supply. They used to pass the time playing sport and Edwin, who liked boxing, represented his ship.  He also boxed with men who had boxed for their living in Civvy Street.

When the British landed in Italy the Germans took control and arrived at the prison camp.  The first thing they did was to take the Camp Commandant out and shoot him.  He was too pro-British!  The prisoners were handed into cattle trucks and taken through the Brenner Pass to Germany, thence to Poland.  When they came close to rivers they sometimes stopped and let them out to drink some water.  It took three days to reach their destination.
 

They arrived at a coal mine where they had to work 12 hours a night.  The Camp Commandant had a thing about men escaping and throughout the day would order roll-calls to make sure that all prisoners were still there.  Food was so short that they were given dead horses from the Russian Front which they boiled up in old oil drums.  Thousand of maggots would rise to the surface and were scooped off, any remaining were eaten and described as ‘extra meat’.  Sometimes they were given meat that looked alright, but they could break a tooth on the shrapnel inside it.

After some time, Edwin was sent to another camp; this time to a sugar beet factory.  Here they had to stoke the furnaces, which was lovely in the winter because they were warm and they could eat the sugar beet.
 

His family didn’t hear from Edwin for a while but then a telegram arrived to say that he was on his way home.  That was January 1945.  It turned out that he had been in hospital.  At that time the authorities had decided to exchange prisoners who were blind or so severely injured that they could never fight again.  He never did say why he was in hospital or for how long.  It was just wonderful that he was home.

Edwin would very rarely talk about his experiences, but little bits and pieces came out over the years.  Because both of his brothers were in the Royal Navy they would sometimes talk about their experiences when the family were altogether.  During these times Edwin would talk about his experiences.
 

The girl now comes into the story.  Rita worked in an office in the City of London and she hated it.  As soon as she was 17½ she gave up her job and applied to join the Land Army.  She had a shock as she couldn’t go in the Land Army but instead had to work in a factory.  This was Government policy as factory workers were needed in the area where she lived.  So she was sent to the designated factory where they phoned the Labour Exchange and asked for her to work in the office.  Their request was refused, which suited her as she didn’t want to work in the office.  The girl was me.

It was clean work in a chemical factory, long since gone.  The shifts suited me.  I had to seal powdered drugs in glass ampoules using a gas jet and taking the air out with just a small pump.  As I was used to typing, my fingers were nimble and so I had no problems.  As the drugs were used as medication for sick and injured troops I felt I was helping the war effort in at least a small way.

When Edwin arrived home it was during the time that the doodle bugs and rockets were coming over.  He couldn’t get out of the Navy because he had signed on for seven years service with five years as a reservist, but they gave him lots of leave.  After six months we got married.  After a while he was sent to the Boy’s Training College just outside Harwich where he stayed until he had served his seven years.  The war ended in 1945.
 

In 1947 Edwin couldn’t get home for Easter, I was still living at home.  My mother’s church was holding a special Easter Monday service and she invited me along.  I refused as I was reading a good book and wanted to finish it.  Somehow the book didn’t seem so interesting so I decided to go to the service.  God had been telling me that I should become a Christian but I didn’t want to as once Edwin was home for good we intended to have a good time.  We did not want to go to church to hear boring old sermons and sing dreary old hymns.

The preacher that evening was a middle aged man whom I had never seen before.  During his sermon, he said, “There is someone here who if they don’t get right with God tonight, they never will.”  I was horrified; I had heard about hell and didn’t want to go there. I knew a lot about the Bible as my mum and dad were Christians.  As a child I liked to go to my dad’s church because the services were not so long and some of my friends attended the Sunday school.  My Mother used to tell me a Bible story before I went to school and she taught me to say my prayers at bedtime.

That evening, Easter Monday 1946, I became a Christian.

You may say I became a Christian through fear.  Yes I did, I didn’t want to stand before God on the Judgement Day knowing I had despised Him.  But oh, when I said yes to Him he filled my heart with such joy and gladness, I thought how stupid I had been not to respond to Him earlier.
 

In late summer that year Ed was demobbed.  I still hadn’t told him I had become a Christian.  After a couple of weeks visiting his family we came home.  On the Sunday evening he asked me to go for a walk and I refused saying “I’m a Christian now, I must go to church.”  He didn’t make a fuss as he was used to his family going to church on Sundays.  This continued for a few weeks.  I went to church, he stayed at home.  One Sunday evening he went upstairs and came down in his new suit and shirt and highly polished shoes.  I thought “Gosh, he’s going out without me.”  I hated that and asked where he was going.  He replied “I’m coming with you.”  From that time on Ed became a radiant Christian man.
 

So we went on to spend our lives as Christians.  We had two daughters who both became Christians and married Christian’s – young men they met at church.

We lived very ordinary sort of lives, nothing spectacular on the outside but we found the wonderful, wonderful love of God and the peace and joy that only He can give, and that is a free gift.  For Jesus paid the price of our sin when he died on the cross, so that we might become children of God and so I praise Him and thank Him all the time for His wonderful love for me.