We just received an excellent email from Brenda Yalden (nee Martin). I am going to post her email detail and an article from the Southern edition of the TV times in December 1962. It’s a really good story.

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, 1.8MB)

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.