Thank you Brenda

Hello Mike
I am having difficulty getting in to the Dunera web sight at present so I am sending this to you. It is the article in the Southern edition of the TV times in December 1962 and it is about the Baltic cruise in the summer that year when the ITV crew came with us.
Stewart Knowles who wrote the article came to interview me and he called it “Hat full of memories” because a Russian sailor had written his name in my school boater….I still have it! My name was Brenda Martin.

I realise that this is a poor copy and I will write it out for you if you are unable to read it.

Interestingly enough my husband was 70 recently and for his birthday I gave him a cruise for 2 in the Baltic ..on one condition, that he took me. Two of our children have visited St. Petersburg and, although my husband had learned some Russian at school, he had not ventured there. We went last May 2012 on the Discovery and some fellow passengers were part of the Arctic Convoy with some wonderful tales to tell. One of the Lecturers on the ship was David Bray who seemed to know everything about ships …and yes I had to ask him about the Dunera.

I was amazed to see how Leningrad/St. Petersburg had changed . From a city of shabby down trodden grandeur, it had become a city of beauty and elegance. I had not realised when I was there in 1962 that the people living in Leningrad 20 years before had to survive the siege. Many thousands had died. President Gorbachev changed Russia through Glasnost and Perestroika and the people in St Petersburg renovated their beautiful palaces and opened them for all to see. It was a wonderful trip and we berthed at many of the destinations we did before. This time we did call at Helsinki and …yes we also went through the Kiel canal.

I hope this reaches you ok. Thank you for reminding me of this very special time.
Very best wishes
Brenda Yalden (nee Martin)

Download (PDF, Unknown)

IF the PDF Viewer isn’t working – read the article from this download: Click here to View.

Please do get in touch with YOUR memories of trips out on MS Dunera. I also have quite a few more sent in that will be coming over the weeks to come….

Many thanks to you all for your cotributions.

Thankyou for your email, I did have a post on your website some time ago but have not received any feedback.

The story is, is that I had a distant cousin who was in the RAF and was killed at Singapore (Walter Rossiter) on the 14th Feb 1942, he was attached to the 307 AMES (it was a radar station). I obtained a copy of his death certificate and it stated he was killed on the HMT Dunera on that day (or the 12th) but my understanding the Dunera was not near Singapore at the time but was near Colombo but I am not too sure.

So I was hoping that I may have got some feedback on this but have not so far.

Walter is commemorated at the Kranji War cemetery in Singapore. I have a feeling he was not on the Dunera and that the BDM records are wrong.

Neil Rossiter

Does ANYone have information that can help Mr Rossiter? If so please do get in touch and we can try to answer his questions.

Many thanks

We sailed aboard the Dunera bound for Korea. Luckily some of us were re-posted en route and left the ship at Singapore.

Fond memories of my time abroad. The voyage out introduced us to a typhoon crossing the Indian Ocean and very high seas for a few days.

The decks were placed out of bounds and we were confined below during the storm. After over 18 months in Tanglin barracks GHQFARELF I was again lucky to be returned safely to Southampton on the Dunera and civilian life.

I think that was the one that saw us stuck outside Grand Harbour in a Force 10 Gale. Though I might be getting this mixed up with the previous year on Devonia.

The National Library in Canberra is hosting an exhibition marking 70 years since a group of people were interned as enemy aliens in camps in Australia.

The beauty of this site is the fact that many people who have travelled on this ship may well wonder from time to time: “I wonder what happened to….?”

You fill the dots! If that is you and you have stumbled on the site – do feel free to comment and even register yourself as a contributor (the site is open for that) and post so that your information comes out here on the home page for a while….

New posts will come in over yours, but you get the chance to “be in touch” with people from years ago – if you wish to…ANY problems with registering and posting (there should not be I hope!) PLEASE do get in touch and I will assist.

Many thanks to all who do register and post.

Have an excellent week

Just a quick PS here – from time to time we get hassled by rogue users and it makes site management a bit tricky. IF you find that you cannot register, please do get in touch and let me know. There are times when we have to shut down registrations to deter “the bogey-man!”

Thank you

On the way out the trip across the Bay of Biscay was Force 7-8 and most were seasick.

During the trip between Lisbon and Gibraltar we saw a waterspout and some dolphins, I remember the swimming pool and the class rooms on the main deck, our dormitory had bunks 3 high which were suspended on chains I have been reading the letters and have not found anyone from my cruise, yet I still have my badge and Shipmates club certificate signed by B A Rogers.

During my search through some old photos I found a photo of Discoveries Monument to Vasco Da Gama in Lisbon that I took while we were on shore and this year I saw a picture of Tower De Hercules which we visited and was taken recently by a fellow Radio Amateur who lives in La Coruna.

When we finally docked at Southampton we were to dock next to The Queen Elizabeth but it was foggy and there was a narrow miss (or so we thought ) as we went along side to our berth.

I have enclosed a copy of my” Dunera Shipmates Club “certificate.

Dunera Shipmates Club certificate

Did you go to Norway and Denmark?

If so would love to see your movie.

Again I have to say that the MV Dunera was not a schools ship in 1960, those who think they sailed on the first school trip are mistaken. I was on the last outward voyage to Aden from Southampton in January 1961. There is a short sequnce on youtube recalling the trip……………….

We had a rough passage through the Bay of Biscay and the ship was quarantined at all the stops. Only personnel due to be based at the port of call were allowed off. At Malta we arrived at Valletta in the midst of a NATO fleet on exersises. We sailed into the Habour behind HMS Eagle and just ahead of HMS Bulwark as I recall. It was also at this stop that a unloading derrick dropped the packing cases of the disembarkees into the harbour.

Poor souls watch all their worldly goods go to the bottom of the sea. I wonder if they were salvaged and if so what state they were in? At Limassol, where we got off, my mother was seen carrying an orange down the steps to the tender. She was forcefully told she could not bring it ashore, she tried to return up the steps to return the orange but was told she had disembarked and could not go back on board. the only course of action was to eat the whole orange, skin and pips included, before she could go anywhere.

At the time the ship was anchored and was enduring a gale so she was hanging on to the hand rail with one hand dutifully eating the orange held in the other whilst being thrown about by the violent motion.

A very memorable introduction to the beautiful island of Cyprus. Jan 1961 was a
very memorable cruise.

Some weeks before as the end of our First Year was looming someone came to school to talk to us about this cruise, and places were available even at that late stage – for £25.

I remember my father who had a good engineer’s job at the time, thought it would be great for me, but he couldn’t afford it so he asked his Mum, my Grandma, and she stumped up the money! I’m so glad she did.

The trip is still etched in my mind like it was yesterday. I remember going around the North Cape of Scotland in the stormy seas and everyone seemed to be throwing up. Bill Paterson, in the bunk below got up to be sick 23 times in the night! Why do I remember that?

There was an intercom early in the morning and we were all called to the deck to ‘smell’ the approaching land..it was the smell of PINE forests of Norway, before we could even see it. It was my first experience of a foreign land.

I was still 11 and I was the youngest pupil in my yeargroup. We saw the lovley sights of Bergen, and the ship anchored in a fjord and we had a race around the ship in the rowing boats, against some other schools that were on the cruise.

Onto Oslo, where we saw the saucy statue of naked intertwined bodies in Vigeland park. Down to Copenhagen (Tivoli gardens/The Mermaid) Onto Hamburg thro’ the Kiel Kanal.

Trips to see the Eastern German guards on the Wall, and to think..we were in Hamburg just as the Beatles were playing in the Reeperbahn!

Round the Amsterdam where we sampled food and ice cream, that wouldn’t make it into English shops for another decade!

Sailed back to Hull. No more seasickness.

We even went on local radio to relive our trip, and once home I couldn’t stop talking/thinking about it for months.

It was another 7 years before I could afford to go abroad again.

I never realised until now that the Dunera had had such an eventful career as a ship..not all happy by the sound of it.

Robert Dean also sent this note in on Monday, August 02, 2010 at 13:10:45 – quite rightly irritated by the slow addition of the message above. It WAS added to the old site eventually but I really thought it should be added again here

A couple of months ago, posted to you my long story about my experiences on the Dunera from late July 1961 for a fortnight to Norway, Denmark, Germany + Holland sailing from L’pool, BUT IT HASN’T BEEN put on this site yet..DISAPPOINTED

My sincere apologies and I hope you are able to see this post again now Mr Dean