Volume Eight - Pre-Victorian to the present day - more aspects - Chains at Penarth Dock - Macey, Mules and Wallace Family History . . .

3c) Brian Wallace

Dad was born in 1926. As a boy dad used to mess about in a rowing boat in Penarth Dock. Once, he appeared in a sailor suits pulling a 2 foot long model sailing boat. He remembers Alwyn Thomas being the Harbour Master. He lived in Lord Street.

July 2nd 1941 at Penarth Dock. The day after a land mine was dropped from a plane blowing up the railway lines.

In 1941, he remembered walking home as an air raid started. Night had just fallen, and he could see the search lights shining in the sky as a walked along Salop Street. He could also hear the bombs dropping nearby. They were trying to hit Penarth and Cardiff docks.

Dad’s best friend at school, Ronald E. Gunter, being a Gibbs Home boy, had to join the Navy. In 1940, although he was only 14, Ronald was ‘frog-marched’ down to Barry to join the S. S. Daydawn The merchant navy ship, captained by James Horsfield, was about to cross the Atlantic to pick up goods from America. He was taken on as a galley boy, but he didn’t last long. The ship was torpedoed by a U-boat on the 21st November 1940. Ronald went down with the ship. He was just 15 years old.

Brian remembers 'nice lad' lost at sea.