Liverpool 1944. Merchant seaman Ronnie Johnson was on a blind date when he saw a woman who was so beautiful she looked like a film star....
Usually when on leave, Ronnie would meet up with his pal Bobby and they'd go dancing. This time his friend made his excuses: now he had a steady girlfriend, so he suggested that she bring a friend for Ronnie. Ronnie wasn't too sure about this, but agreed.
When they got to the cinema, Ronnie remembers looking down from the tram car and thinking, 'the one on the left's a stunner'. She was beautifully dressed with blond hair, painted stockings and high heels. She was 'a film star'. This was Ivy.
Over the next six weeks he saw a lot of Ivy, and when he went back to sea they wrote. The merchant navy suffered terrible losses during the Second World War. But Ronnie who was on the 'Diloma' survived it and during the winter of 1947 his tanker was approaching home. It was unbelievably cold. During a snow storm they lost their bearings and Ronny was 2nd Engineer and on the controls when the boat ran aground. A phone message from the Bridge told him that they were going to try to pull themselves off:
'When we ring down, we're going full astern. Give her all you've got!' It was a disastrous move, 'ripping the belly out' of the boat.
The boat was abandoned and Ronnie, as an officer, was in charge of one of the lifeboats. But as he organised the men onto it he realised that dressed in his boiler suit he'd soon perish in the water. Also, he'd bought an engagement ring for Ivy, and he'd left it by his bed. He didn't think he'd survive anyway, and he didn't want to go without it.
Retreating from the captain's yells, he dashed back to his cabin (which was not yet submerged), retrieved leather jacket, ring and a lipstick he'd bought for Ivy, and dashed back to the lifeboat. It was lowered and moved swiftly away, heavily laden.
The crew were rowing nicely when another disaster struck. Through the snow appeared a huge RAF gunboat rescue launch which offered to tow the two lifeboats. Tragically, the line to the second boat snapped, and the rescue launch, oblivious to this, speeded up, causing Ronnie's lifeboat to capsize. Ronny managed to cling on to the propeller shaft and heaved himself on to the hull, where he stayed for about an hour before he lost consciousness. Many men perished.
When he woke up, Ronnie was visited by an ambulance man, who said, 'you are the luckiest man on that ship'.
It seems that when they brought the survivors and bodies ashore, the dead were put in a mortuary van, and survivors in the ambulance. Ronnie was thought dead, and it was only after he'd been placed in the top shelf of the mortuary van and the door slammed that the driver saw his arm move. 'Hey, that one's moved! Get him out quick!' he shouted.
Lying in the hospital bed, one of the nurses brought round the little box they'd found in his pocket. The ring was a little bent but otherwise ok. Ivy was thrilled with it.
Ivy died five years ago but the couple lived very happily together, travelling all over the Middle East before retiring to Cornwall.
