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This is a true account, in his own words, of a village boy from Yorkshire who joined the Royal Navy in World War 1. He saw war service on HMS Canterbury in the North, Mediterranean, Aegean and Black Seas, exploring cities he could otherwise never have hoped to see at the start of the twentieth century. He describes in vivid detail the array of mess mates on board ship up to all sorts of dodges, smuggling and womanizing. In contrast to the hardships of life on the Lower Deck and narrow misses in enemy action, his consolations included cocoa blocks, playing in the ship's brass band, sharing the full moon with his Yorkshire sweetheart and the kindnesses of companions.

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9781494874711

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Joe Hird was born in 1898, the only child of a colliery blacksmith and a weaver in the North of England, living in a two-room back-to-back house. He gained scholarships to grammar school and university and became a teacher. When he was 70 he began to write his memories of his naval experiences in World War I, recalled in remarkable and vivid detail. He hoped that his children would be curious about the role played by Lower Deck seamen like him in a world-changing event. He died in 1990 at the age of 92. In the centenary year of the start of that Great War, 2014, his daughter Ruth Lesser edited his story into book form as a piece of history worthy of a wider share, as he would have wished.

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