Danny, you may be able to help me with something that's mystified me. I mentioned in an earlier post that my father sent home from Cairo in 1940 a silver-plated coffee table; it's about four feet diameter and came with folding legs. Later from Crete came a brilliantly patterned woven wool shepherd's shoulder bag, which I also still have. Was it usual for people serving overseas in the middle of a war to send quite bulky non-essential items like these back to the UK, at a time when I'd imagine space was needed for more important stuff?
On the other hand, I suppose most of the freight space was needed outwards from the UK, so maybe ships were returning largely empty.