I dedicate this poem to a friend since those wartime days, who as a young merchant seaman was torpedoed in mid-Atlantic, and clung to a raft for days covered in oil, in freezing weather, until rescued by a Royal Navy Corvette. Yet time and time again he volunteered to make that perilous crossing again and again, in order to bring sustenance to our country. He never spoke to his family of his fear every time he joined a new ship at Liverpool, only to me. Stan was one of the unsung heroes of that war.

You know I'm not one, to bemoan my fate,
but getting older, more frequent of late,
I stop and I think, of just how I was,
healthy and vital, and it's all because,

of the life I have led, and this ageing curse,
many survivals, it could have been worse.
My once former self, has now surely drowned,
submerged under water, and yet to be found.

Yet I still dream of those days as a child,
fervently wishing, those waters so wild,
would uncover my body and wash it ashore,
so I could reclaim it, and wear it once more.