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Homepage is: http://www.btinternet.com/~shawweb/stephen

Dad (Cecil Shaw known as George Shaw) was born Feb 14th 1920, and mum (Ireen Mary Hughes known as Reen) was born November 1920.
I know little of Mum's early life, except that she had strong memories of persecution at school for being left handed. By 1950 the Hughes family was in an old house on High Street,Northop (Flintshire, North Wales) made by combining 3 one up/one down houses. This was an OLD dwelling, with an outside toilet, no bath, no telephone, rudimentary electricity, and a Rayburn cooking range in the kitchen. The three downstairs rooms were the kitchen, the sitting room, and the parlour, which was hardly ever used.

Mum had a brother Tommy and a sister Marian.

Dad's mum was Anne Carty Hughes and his Dad was Stephen Shaw. Dad was to be called Stephen but another member of that generation of Shaw's got there first. That Stephen was killed in WW2.
For reasons which are unknown, for almost all his life Dad always referred to himself as GEORGE SHAW. This was the name on his nameplate at work. Officially he was Cecil but everyone knew him as George, right up until his move to the nursing home when he chose to be called Cecil. Mum always called him Cec (sess).

Dad's dad was a stonemason, working around North Wales and Cheshire. He suffered from stone dust on the lungs and after a period of ill health died whilst Dad was quite young. Dad had a younger sister, Cas, who was sent to spend an unhappy time with an aunt.
Dad and his mum were left to fend for themselves, living in a council house, in the Flintshire market town of Mold, at a time of great economic upheaval (the 1930s) where food was what you caught or from the community kitchen. Coal was scavenged.

Dad earned some funds by delivering coal in a barrow, and later joined the Post Office as a delivery boy.

Then along came the second great war, and Dad joined the Navy as a coder. After a short period of training at a holiday camp near Skegness he was allocated to a ship called the Arabis, and set off to assist the evacuation at Dunkirk - at this time the only armament the ship had was a small gun from the first world war.
From there it was off to the Atlantic convoys, sailing around the Atlantic including calls to Africa and South America. Dad's war records show he received a small reward for salvaging a ship in Iceland.
Then the Arabis was to be handed over to the US Navy and whilst the ship waited in Ireland, Dad stayed with her until the hand over. He enjoyed his stay there. In US ownership Arabis became Saucy, and her RN crew moved over to another ship.
His next ship was a similar class of vessel, the Bryony. Bryony had been sunk by enemy bombing just after launch but was now to receive a short handover trial and then off with a new Captain in a new ship on a hazardous voyage...

On Bryony he sailed for the first part of the ill fated PQ17 Russian convoy, and then went all the way with convoy PQ18. They sailed early September 1942 for Archangel, and started the return voyage as QP15 around November 1942. I have some film of this convoy from the Imperial War Museum.
A separate page has more notes of Dad's ships.

In Russia he had a strong memory of meeting a beautiful Russian woman visiting her mother. The country was covered in deep snow and it was not obvious where any roads went. As the lady knew her mother lived nearby to where the Navy ships were, she followed Dad as he made his way back to the ship after sending telegrams back home for the men.
(We still had his telegram to his mother in 1995).
Dad found his way back to the ship by following bits of coloured paper he had placed along the route as he went into town.
Also in Russia he had tea with British reporter Godfrey Wynn.

After that fairly awful trip, arriving back home early December 1942, following a friendly collision repairs were needed, and with more armaments fitted, and a unique second yard arm, in April 1943 they left home base for some light Atlantic work.

Then it was off to the Mediterranean where Bryony took part in the Sicily landings (July 1943) before taking up escort duties between Gibraltar and Alexandria. Dad received a shrapnel wound to the leg. He was offloaded to another ship to be taken to Egypt. He reports that this ship was sunk under him and he spent time in the water (on a buoyant stretcher) before being picked up by another ship and being taken to Egypt.
His foot did not heal well and some silk was inserted for new skin to grow over. Still bandaged he was "lent" to the Special Services for a movement to Leros toward the end of 1943. This was a no-hope decoy mission and Dad's task was to transmit a coded signal to Egypt. It was heard in London.

Once the Allies had control of the Aegean they could send supplies to Russia through the Dardanelles and thus avoid the dangerous Arctic and Persian Gulf routes. Unfortunately the Americans thought differently and would not support the plan. Churchill still went ahead with the scheme, but used only a Brigade of troops instead of the required Division. The plan was doomed to fail. With control of the air firmly in the hands of the Luftwaffe, the Germans recaptured the islands, the formal surrender being 16th November 1943.

The Germans surrounded the small British group, on top of a hill, with no water supply, and capture was inevitable. Dad was posted missing on 24th November 1943, and it was four months before news of his fate reached his family, via a repatriated prisoner. Dad experienced a long train ride through Yugoslavia to a prisoner of war camp. Dad remembered Yugoslavia as a very poor place. As a Naval Coder captured on a hill with soldiers, inevitably Dad received more than casual treatment once captured.

Dad's memories of the PoW camp were largely good, although in a first camp he was the subject of an attempt to convert him to the German cause (perhaps by the then fairly recent British Free Corps), and that having failed, more extreme interrogation.

His final camp was the Naval camp at Marlag u Milag, prisoner 1223 in the M camp (Camp Milag O was for RN officers, Camp M for other ranks). Prisoners were well treated. However the Germans were not doing well, and POWs from other camps were marched in- plus the food distribution was going badly. From the end of 1944 the POWs were finding the going tougher.

On 10th April 1945 the POWs, malnourished as they were, were marched away from the camp, with the intent of moving them to Sweden. The prisoners left markings to let the RAF know where they were, but on 11th April the column was straffed by RAF spitfires. Dad was within inches of the line of fire and saw death and bloody destruction at very close hand.
Dad did many years later have nightmares involving the RAF killing British prisoners being moved, thinking they were German troops, and the death and blood which resulted. The column finally reached Lubeck and around early May 1945 were liberated. On return to the UK he may have spent some time in a hospital, possibly for mental health reasons.

Marlag and Milag North can be seen in the film "The Captive Heart", shot there by Ealing Studios just six weeks after liberation. The film did not portray the camp as a navy camp, but it did show the rabbit hutches which Dad had told me about. A famous prisoner there was Albert RN, who also had a film made about his exploits - called Albert RN.

Dad had special leave to get married, in Mold in September 1945, but remembered little of it. Indeed he said he remembered little of the birth of his children, June and myself.

By 1952 he had moved into a new Council House in Mickle Trafford, near Chester, was working for the Civil Service in Chester and had a part time job as an usher at the Royalty Theatre in Chester....
but now we are into the 1950's...