As the Port Fairy left the river and reached the open sea, with paravanes slung out in case of mines in the shallows, the sea freshened, the sky was dull and grey, and a clammy drizzle hung in the air.

Apart from John Reading, Victor Smith and myself, the passengers were a young couple and their two-year old child going home after evacuation from Java; a mechanical engineer from Sumatra returning home; a Birmingham man, wife and son going back after two years in Sydney; a young talkative Australian bride of eight days travelling to New Zealand to join her sailor husband; a retired Australian sailing for his health; and a young New Zealand girl going home to her parents. We didn't feel to have anything in common with any of them, so John, Vic and I found ourselves mixing with the ship's officers in their off-duty hours.

We soon became firm friends of John. He was a New Zealander, early middle-aged, a bachelor, son of a Christchurch newsman. He was erudite, witty, and of quiet, even temperament, and his job had given him an impressive insight into world politics. We were assured of good company for the whole of our voyage.

The ship was commanded by a Devon man, one of four brothers with War service who were still active in the Merchant Navy. The atmosphere of quiet efficiency inspired our confidence in the crew, which was as well, considering that the vessel was not sailing in convoy but relying on its own turn of speed. We three found ourselves frequently in the company of the skipper, his first officer, and other officers, either for cabin hospitality or for long sessions of Bridge.

Gunners from the Royal Artillery and Navy manned the anti-aircraft and light naval guns, the only armament on the vessel.

The sea was choppy for the first few days, and the air turned colder as we headed south of east towards New Zealand. This was of course mid-winter in the southern hemisphere. By day we played deck golf, and when darkness fell we played Bridge, and went on deck before retiring, to marvel at the green phosphorescence tumbling by the bows and streaming past us to fade and die astern.

One Friday in June the distant snowy mountains of New Zealand rose above the mists, white peaks standing high above the snow line, the outline clean and clear in the winter air.

We entered Caroline Bay in South Island and anchored off Timaru in late afternoon to await the tide. A pilot came aboard and manoeuvred the big ship into the small dock at about eight o'clock.

Timaru was like a small English country town. From the town centre we could walk one way to the sea, and in the other direction stood the mountain peaks beyond the browns and greens of the valleys and slopes. On Sunday some of us walked to a natural park on the outskirts of the town. A serpentine lake wound through a turfy hollow, spanned by rustic bridges and edged with rushes and moss. There were wild ducks and black swans, and deer taking morsels from children. It was like a bit of England.

All Timaru knew of the ship's arrival, and we were made welcome in the shops, with a concession to allow us to buy warm clothing without coupons.

We left Timaru on Tuesday morning and reached Port Chalmers next day. The wharf was upstream, and as the ship glided slowly to the port we enjoyed the soft shades of green and cream in the pale sunlight, the rolling hills standing against a backcloth of winter blue. The town lined the hillside, small cottages and a grey-spired church standing on the terraces. Boat sheds stood on the narrow strip at the water's edge. A train chuffed its way along a hidden track halfway up the hill between dark pines, to disappear round the headland with a plume of steam to mark its progress.

The ship tied up at ten o'clock and we went ashore.

Port Chalmers was a tiny place, with a cinema and a few shops, and a Cenotaph standing proudly in its main street. A few minutes' walk away were the slopes with splendid views of hills, the river and the sea.

We walked up the hill which rose steeply from the dock, the road and paths crisp with frost and a keen wind to tingle our faces. At the top of the hill was an edifice, a squat round pillar of local stone, with a stone anchor on the top. A tablet on this memorial recorded the Captain Scott expedition which started from Port Chalmers in the Terra Nova, never to return from the South Pole.

We made three visits to Dunedin, twenty five minutes by train along the river bank, to do some shopping.

The ship sailed from Port Chalmers on Monday, having filled the holds with frozen rabbits and mutton and had her engines tuned ready for the long voyage home. Mist and a freshening seaspray chilled the air with a foretaste of the wintry conditions ahead.

Thirty six hours on we crossed the International Date Line on two Tuesdays, and every night the clock was advanced half an hour as we sailed slightly south of east.

The weather worsened, with a heavy sea swell and no sun, and every movable thing was lashed down. Safety lines were strung along the decks, and seamen scuttering along with food led a hazardous life, some trips ending in disaster. Huge breakers rose above the main deck and collapsed on the boards with a roar; the barometer stood at 28.5 ins and temperature 39º. Hail and icy wind tore at our faces as we attempted a little exercise on deck, hauling hand over hand along the safety lines.

One day the sun struggled through, weak and wet, and the hail glistened and shone in the pale light. A rainbow soared from the churning sea, rising high in a beautiful arc to paint the leaden sky, then falling to disappear in the grey waters. That was mid winter in the South Pacific.

Monday 6 July was worst of all. A fifty foot sea was running, and the ship rolled heavily in the gigantic swell. At lunchtime half the food shot from the plates and on to the cloths, and passengers were pushed into the tables, then into the backs of their chairs. As the erratic meal was finishing a particularly heavy roll lifted us out of our seats and onto the deck, a steward was picked up and thrown with his load of crockery against a bulkhead, and glasses and water jugs tipped over on the bolted-down tables. That was an unusual meal, one to remember.

Waves were crashing over the top boat deck, and one quick-release raft was torn from its sloping cradle and carried into the sea. A ladder from main deck to cabins was ripped from its fixings. The foredeck was swamped every few seconds as the bow dipped into the troughs, and one giant wave caught the bridge and drenched the officers on watch.

Then the glass rose slightly and the wind changed direction. We could use the decks again for games and exercise.

A long sea voyage on a comparatively small ship, which carried a few passengers only as an incidental to its main commercial purpose, was bound to test the nerves and characters of those passengers. Boredom and monotony, lack of exercise, and over-eating - a compulsive habit on board ship - led to frayed tempers and strained relations. Too close an environment, cooped up with comparative strangers, with little room for self-expression; a recipe for trouble. Add to that the anxieties of radio silence and wartime blackout, and only the strongest could survive the test of morale. We became aware of bad feeling between some passengers; one man went on an alcoholic trip to oblivion, and the two RAF officers who had joined us at Port Chalmers were stinkers. They started a campaign of complaints about their cabins, food and service, and had to be dressed down by the Captain. They and their wives were probably the most unpopular people on board.

Vic, John and I were lucky. Vic and I had come through difficult times together, and a bit of restricted liberty was nothing. John had an even temperament. We played Bridge with the Officers, and talked about the sea, the ship, the war. We played cards sometimes all through the night, the stake for a rubber being a round of rum and ginger; by the end of the third or fourth rubber it didn't matter whose round it was. We left the trouble makers well alone.

However, before the voyage ended I had had enough Bridge for a lifetime. Sorry, John L. Beckett of Burnley, who introduced me to the game, but I had my fill of it on the Port Fairy, and I never wanted to play again.

Then one day it occurred to me that I was accumulating the experience of a lifetime. The memories should be put on paper before they faded. John had a small Imperial portable typewriter. He let me borrow it, I scrounged some thin foolscap, and I wrote my first book. It was a little thing called "We Built and Destroyed". In the cabin in bad weather, on a hatch cover in the sunshine, my two fingers stumbled over the keys. It didn't matter if nobody wanted to read it. John criticised it constructively, the Second Officer corrected the shipping jargon, the ship's Engineer gave me a cloth and thin oil to look after the old portable. The original typescript is still a valued possession.

On Sunday 12 July 1942 we saw the snow-clad mountains of South America rising bleak and blue to the north. We rounded the Horn. We could not go via the Panama Canal because of German warships in the Carribean.

Boat drills and action stations were more frequent and very thorough, and the Mate worked for two hard days on the lifeboats, testing the engine of No.1 and seeing that it was fuelled. All boats were freshly stocked with provisions, all davits in good order, pulleys cleaned and oiled, ropes renewed. We were in dangerous waters again.

The weather improved as we changed course to head northeast towards the tropics. The temperature rose steadily, as did our spirits. My typing was done on the hatch covers. We walked barebacked and in shorts before the sun became too hot.

An Admiralty message came through during one of the few gaps in the radio silence. An enemy raider was in our part of the South Atlantic, and a submarine had sunk a ship five hundred miles from Freetown. We were told to sleep in our clothes and to carry lifejackets. The ship changed course to make a detour. The atmosphere was tense.

On Saturday we crossed the Equator, and we also sighted two ships, the first sighting since leaving New Zealand. Next day two aircraft flew over, giving us a feeling of confidence in the knowledge that we were nearing land. On Monday morning the coast of West Africa could be seen for the first time, on our starboard bow, and by afternoon Freetown's wide harbour hove into sight.

We passed through the net and entered harbour at five o'clock.

The difference in the port since my first seeing it in 1940 was tangible. No canoes came to greet us, and we were told that fruit was scarce at that time; but it wasn't just that. The divers and barterers who had entertained us in 1940 were absent. Probably the absence of passenger and pleasure liners accounted for the change of atmosphere.

Dozens of ships crowded the spacious harbour. There were cargo ships, troop ships and warships of various sizes and colourings, their grotesque camouflage making them appear misshapen and difficult to identify. Apparently a convoy had preceded us into harbour, and we were followed by even more vessels when we had anchored. The captain had hoped for a quick refuelling and turnaround, but the prospects were against us with the weight of shipping requiring oil.

The following day was hot and sticky, overcast skies threatening rain. We sweltered in the anchored ship. All through the day vessels were coming and going, a strange assortment of flags and shapes and sizes. An aircraft flew over the harbour. Still no oil for us.

Wednesday morning saw the ship a scene of activity. At six o'clock a strange vessel hove to on our starboard beam. She looked like a converted tramp steamer, and she carried the White Ensign. We were told that she was a de-gaussing ship. When a ship is being built in the yards, the continuous hammering of tools and rivet drills induces permanent magnetism into the steel hull during construction. In wartime the use of magnetic mines put vessels at risk, and the solenoids fitted round them to counteract the magnetic mines could not remove the built-in hull magnetism because the lines of force were on a different plane. The odd ship alongside was going to de-gauss us, to remove the shipyard magnetism.

A strange boarding party of West Africans came aboard. One wore a red, white and blue shirt, and carried an umbrella with the same colour scheme; some wore large wide flat caps, others soft felt hats. A few wore the Naval rating's round sailor cap. They all set to work with a will, hauling aboard the huge coils of cable, batteries and instruments, round booms and other tackle in preparation for the work.

Meanwhile a lighter had tied up on our port side, and the hoses had been fixed to our ship's bunker inlets. Then a dilapidated-looking tramp freighter tied up on the port side of the lighter, to have its bunkers connected also. Then the lighter began to fuel both vessels at the rate of some hundred tons an hour.

Two West African Customs Officers were having some difficulty in getting aboard our ship. They couldn't reach us by way of the Navy de-gaussing vessel, so had to go aboard the lighter first. They became rather excited, viewing with concern the smooth bulkhead and the gap between the ships. The senior official, wearing a smart blue serge and peaked cap, with two broad bands round his arms, paraded the lighter's foredeck with growing excitement, waving wildly to attract the attention of our preoccupied ship's officers. As he became more excited, he stamped up and down the lighter, waving his arms and shouting. The comic performance ended suddenly when two armbands slipped off his sleeve, and he retired in confusion to retrieve them.

The odd Naval vessel left us at ten thirty, leaving the ratings with us. Two sat on the de-gaussing cable in the scuppers, dozing in the sunshine. One was counting the coins from his pocket, stacking the different denominations neatly in small piles on the hatch cover. Another was writing on the canvas cover with a bit of chalk, stopping at intervals to cock his head and repeat the words he had written. He looked around for audience appreciation. Some were singing, some whistling, and some laughing and joking at the rail. They were a happy bunch of sailors.

The West Africans knew that proximity to the galley paid dividends, each titbit being the subject of a good-natured scramble. When a huge piece of meat was handed out, it was torn apart by a dozen hands, and others ran up to see the prize. A tray of meat morsels was pounced on by a mass of black bodies, and disappeared under a mound of posteriors like a ball in a rugby scrum.

The Captain of the Naval vessel had eyes for nobody but the two-year-old girl passenger who was in my care at that moment. He took her in his arms, and she was soon gurgling and smiling into his wrinkled face.

He told us that he hadn't seen a white baby for eighteen months. We forebore to ask him if he had kids at home; I think he must have.

Sunday was hot and dry and still. The decks threw heat at us, through our eyes and our shoes. One passenger had heat stroke, others lay around in whatever shade was available, sun glasses to protect their eyes.

An aircraft carrier and its escort vessels left the harbour, followed by several troop carriers. Thousands of silent khaki-clad figures lined the rails; no waving, no sound. No thrill of patriotism, for the war was by now old and grim. Now the ships carried the troops straight into the battle zones; there was no time to show the soldier the strange new lands before going into battle.

The Port Fairy weighed anchor at ten thirty and caught up with the convoy after a few minutes' sailing. We sailed through their formation but kept with them until they changed direction and turned southwards. Paravanes were out again in case of mines, and the ship resumed its zigzag sailing pattern, a necessity for a lone ship on the wartime high seas, in order to make a submarine miss its target.

The departure from Freetown, so changed in less than two years, caused me to reflect on the zigzagging I had been doing since November 1940. I had zigzagged northwest, swerved to the south, cut across east to Freetown, cruised southwards to Capetown, called at Mombasa, bustled to Bombay, hurried to Colombo, then crossed to Penang. A crazy drive south to Singapore, a crawl via Java to Australia, then across to New Zealand, further east towards the Falklands, north in mid-Atlantic, and east into Freetown. Here I was, heading west for mid-Atlantic again before sailing back to where I started. Four times I had crossed the Equator, and sailed between latitudes 56º north and 56º south, around the world. A peacetime voyage would have involved none of those things.

Sunday and Monday were uncomfortable days, without a breath of air, the sky heavy, the atmosphere thickly humid. These were the Doldrums.

When at last the ship turned north and we left the Tropics, the sky cleared to a soft blue, cooling breezes tempered the warm sunshine, and the days lengthened. A week passed quickly in the fine weather and calm seas, and the ship made good speed as our spirits rose in anticipation of the end of our voyage.

We passed the Azores on Sunday, and entered the most dangerous part of the voyage. Guns were manned, watches were doubled, and there was an air of tension at daybreak and at dusk, for the half-light is the most dangerous time of the day. Once more we were advised to sleep in our clothes and to have a kitbag packed for emergencies, a lifejacket ready. The cool efficiency, order and calm of the crew and gunners gave us a sense of security and confidence.

On Monday we ran into colder weather and rough seas, the vessel losing speed as it rode the deep troughs and the tall crests of a leaden swell. Mist and an overcast sky reduced visibility to a few feet. There was an improvement as the week wore on, and then we were told that instead of docking at Cardiff, we were to go to Belfast. The reason was that acoustic mines had been sown in the Bristol Channel.

We approached Belfast at dawn on Friday in clear weather. As we sailed into the harbour we saw the green rolling hills and the cottages dotted along the coast. The old grey buildings of Bangor and the patches of trees lay still and quiet and peaceful. Nearly there.

In the afternoon the passengers said goodbye to the Port Fairy and were taken to Belfast by tender. In the tender we were debriefed by security officers, and asked to hand over diaries and other documents for checking. My precious typescript was in my kitbag, but they weren't going to get that. Instead, I gave them a small notebook containing dates and details about the Malayan adventure.

Vic and I stayed together for the few hours before we were due to leave Belfast, but we dare not wander far. One thing remains in my memory of that day in the dockland; we visited a cafe, and had some wonderfful bread and butter. The bread was not pure white - it was creamy and speckled. It was the new National loaf - nowt taken out.

At 9.15 on Friday night we embarked on the fast ferry, and crossed the North Channel of the Irish Sea. The first sight of England was about 4.30 on Saturday morning, a thin grey line across the horizon in the semi-darkness.

On arrival at the small port of Heysham in Morecambe Bay, I caught an early train which took me east into Yorkshire before turning south to Colne. The fields were being cut for hay.

In all my travelling I never saw fields as green as England's.

The train pulled in at the lovely little Victorian railway station at 9.30. A familiar porter handed down my luggage from the goods van. Would I know the man collecting tickets at the barrier? Of course I would - eveybody knew everybody in Colne in those days. I hurried up the steep subway approach to the exit, and just had to peep in at the ticket office. Alice Makin, a friend of my two elder sisters, said hello as if I'd just come back from Burnley Tech.

I struggled along Tittybottle Avenue with my luggage, decided against the short cut and went the long way round to Priestfield. As I reached Bailey's field I saw my mother at the back door. Inside the house, pretending not to be excited, was my fiancee, playing the piano.

At last I was home.