I love the sea. If I'd had my time over again, I'd have acquired some sort of boat to sail in - either single-handed or with crew mates - but no time now.

My mother's dad (son of a blacksmith) was brought up in Beccles and started work at the age of 11, working on the ropewalk. He went to sea as soon as he could and, in 1901, was working "before the mast" on collier brigs playing between Great Yarmouth and Newcastle. As he got older, he spent half his working life on boats of one sort or another - even working as a steward on the yacht of a wealthy local (Lowestoft) vicar (!) - and packing fish in the Lowestoft herring market.

I remember as a child of about 5 walking with him, hand in hand, along the Lowestoft harbour boardwalk beside which, in those days, was trawler after trawler unloading with steam up so that they could get away quickly for the next trip. He knew all the crews and they knew him. He died in 1953 and, like him, that world has gone forever.

At the age of 36, he sailed as an RAMC orderly on the maiden voyage of HMHS (His Majesty's Hospital Ship) Britannic - sister ship to the Titanic and Olympic. She was intended as a passenger vessel, but became a hospital ship on the outbreak of war in 1914. She sailed to Mudros in the Aegean and ferried wounded soldiers from the Gallipoli beaches to Mudros and then home. Luckily for him, he left for North Africa and India before Britannic hit a mine in the Aegean and sank. Another example of the Cruel Sea (and cruel war). The ship is still down there - very visible - and a war grave.