My yonger brother and I travelled on two troopships after my mother became a Queens Army Schoolmistress. In December 1946 we were posted to Grado, a small island near Trieste, joined to the mainland by a causeway. We spent three wonderful days on the Blue Train, leaving it in Udine and almost freezing to death in the back of a three ton truck during the two hour journey. Eighteen months later we were transferred to Tel el kebir in the canal zone. I was ten when we boarded a troopship in Venice and sailed to Port Said. The only thing I remember about that voyage was having to wear a life jacket most of time as the Adriatic and eastern Med had not yet been swept for mines. In December 1949 we returned home on the SS Orduna, an old rust bucket built by Harland & Wolf, Belfast in 1914. The food was awful, but this didn't matter after I won a daily distance covered sweepstake and became a "wealthy" eleven year old who was going to buy a trunk full of Dinky Toys after we got home. Our arrival in the Bay of Biscay coincided with the biggest winter storm for years. Again we donned life jackets on several occasions, but I enjoyed the storm. The dining room was empty for a couple of day and the food improved dramatically! I remember it was drizzling when we docked in Liverpool in the early hours a few days before Christmas. Everything was grey, the buildings looked as if they were covered in soot and everybody seemed to be miserable. The troops were happy to be back in Blighty, I wasn't so sure myself.