- Contributed by
- Dave Thacker
- People in story:
- Leonard Stanley Thacker, Pots Payne, Tug Wilson, Tansy Lee, Albert Meddings, Mac McLaughton, Hugh Leftwich
- Location of story:
- Freetown, Sierra Leone.
- Background to story:
- Royal Navy
- Article ID:
- A6167937
- Contributed on:
- 16 October 2005
L to R: Len Thacker, Jack Leathersich and Algy Hobber with their washer boy in Freetown.
This story is submitted to the People's War Website by David Thacker, a volunteer from BBC Radio Northampton, on behalf of his Mother, Isabella, wife of the late Len Thacker, and has been added to the site with her permission.She fully understands and accepts the site's terms and conditions.
By September 1941, Len found himself serving in his first proper ship: HMS Bridgewater, a sloop,after passage to Freetown in Royal Ulsterman. His messmates were P.O. "Pots" Payne, "Mac" McLaughton, Tug Wilson, "Tansy" Lee, and Albert "Tich" Meddings. The Captain was Commander Hugh Leftwich of the RSAN. In Freetown, for the first and only time in his life, he had the luxury of a servant, albeit shared with two messmates, to do his washing! Sadly the name of this faithful retainer has not been retained!
Len told how his new shipmates came from all over the UK and beyond. Fascinated by the variety of accents he was encountering for the first time, his efforts to imitate a Scouse accent caused a Liverpudlian messmate to take umbrage. He also admitted to being somewhat alarmed by a huge Glaswegian stoker who would be fighting drunk as the liberty men returned to their ship in a whaler, taking most of the boat's occupants to restrain him. He related his experience of "Casey's Court" and "Crossing the Line" in Bridgewater where he made friends who he still wrote to 50 years later.
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