His next ploy was that now that I had a world-wide fan club, I could not stop at that. I think he was short of copy for the magazine again.

Without wanting to sound “mushy”, I think that there was a little salt water in my blood, as anything to do with the sea or ships was sheer bliss to me. Before and during W.W.2, Dad worked at a Boatyard on the Thames at Isleworth, where they mainly built Launches for the Admiralty and M.T.B's, with also a lot of repair work. Some of the boats came back pretty well beaten up. The Yard worked 24 hrs a day, 7 days a week and often Dad wouldn’t get home for a week. Then he would go in again on a Sunday for fire watching and sometimes he took me with him. This was in 1944 and I was six years old.

Friday and Saturday I was a paragon even washing without being told. Sunday morning, I was up at day break and with a thick coat made from an old army blanket and my knitted balaclava (all kids had one), I was on the back of Dads old BSA 350, hanging on for dear life. When we got to the Yard, we were both frozen stiff so the first thing to do was to stand by the steam bender to thaw out, with a mug of tea made from the boiler. The water came out thick and brown so you didn’t need many tea leaves for it to look right.

Once thawed out I could go where I liked as I was trusted, so I didn’t abuse that trust and it paid off. There was so much to see, great stacks of timber in the drying sheds, workshops for the electricians, blacksmiths, sheet metal workers, pipe fitters and a machine shop. There was also a rigging loft were I watched them splicing ropes and wires and just beyond there, the paint store with that never to be forgotten smell of real paint, linseed oil and turpentine. One place that held a real fascination for me was the engine works where there were to me, the real magicians who took beaten and smashed Rolls Royce Merlin engines salvaged from crashed Spitfires, and transformed them into something that Derby would be proud of, as they were the main power units for M.T.B.'s.

Boats coming in for major repairs were towed in and tied up to wait their turn. Others had R.N. crews on them and the crews lived in huts in the Yard. The stories they told were probably all lies, but they still served to keep young John wound up.

The second best memory is that on one Sunday afternoon in the Summer, I went for a trip on an M.T.B. undergoing trials on the river. No great speed but you could sense the power as it purred along and by closing your eyes you could imagine it smashing through great waves. This must have helped shape my future.

But the real best memory was the lunchtimes. Grandad kept the “Victoria Tavern”, a pub in Isleworth where we had boiled beef sandwiches and pickles and a strange brown liquid looking like the tea-making water from the boiler but with a totally different taste. This must have shaped some more of my future. School just didn’t seem the same when Monday morning came, but then most of that was spent in shelters, having a singsong or hiding under the desks.

After the war, water still played a great part in my life. Dad got a job fitting out a 65ft cabin cruiser for a chap who had an engineering works in Fulham. The boat was moored at Teddington on the Thames, where again I was able to spend a lot of the time messing about with boats. The other great attraction was the canal.

During the summer holidays, we set off for the railway which involved a trip through the allotments where, strange to say, a few carrots or peas joined us which was our lunch. Then on to the railway yards - G.W.R. of course and then over the iron bridge and onto the towpath. There were factories all along the canal with the boiler and engine houses close by so they could draw a supply of water. One good game we had was playing snowballs with all this fluffy white stuff in the yard of the asbestos works. We ended up looking like snowmen (such innocence).

The monkey boats, two 70ft narrow boats with one towing the other, travelled from the Midlands to London and back. When they came close to the bank on a bend we would jump aboard, but then the Bargee would keep to the middle of the cut so that the only way off was to jump and swim for it. Once ashore we pelted them with clods of mud. Many and varied were the craft we built in which to sail round the world in, but they all fell apart and sank taking us with them. Another swim but that was half the fun.

I clowned my way through senior school but somehow I managed to pass for Southall Tech. (Engineering). This was great as I could now get somewhere but alas I was still the clown and couldn’t settle down and apply myself, so it was suggested I should leave. I was 14 ½.

During the early 1950’s I avidly watched a series on T.V. called “Victory at Sea” and seeing what those ships and crews went through really stirred me. That’s what I wanted. So when I left school early with no qualifications I wasn’t worried, I was going to sea.