Stories
Keith's voyage from Southampton
9 year old Keith and his family leave from Southampton Docks for Singapore on SS Asturias in 1957. It took 4 weeks to reach Singapore and they called at Dakar, Durban and Cylon (now Sri Lanka). He remembers particularly as they left one of the ports, some of the crew running to catch the ship and jumping onto the gang-plank as it was being lifted away so they could get back on board (probably seemed fun to a 9 year old).
A postcard from Keith's mum to his dad Frank just before leaving Southampton Docks
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HMS RECLAIM
HMS Reclaim was the only ship at the fleet review for the Coronation 1952 and in 1977 for the Silver Jubilee, she was scrapped in 1982. HMS Reclaim was the only RN ship with sails and Geoffery was proud to have served in one of the last RN ships with sails! He only remembers using them once and that was when they sailed out of Malta with a flotilla and it was hard to keep up.... it gave them another half a knot......
Geoffery Drummond - An ex-Royal Navy Officer.
was a ships Clearance Driver and was based in Portsmouth at HMS Vernon where the Admiralty Experimental Deep Diving Unit was. It was the home of the Royal Navy's standard dress or hardhat divers (known as steamers)
He was commanding officer of HMS Reclaim the deep diving and submarine rescue vessel, when she was in support of the world deep diving record of 600ft (183m).
