Sidney Arthur Blythe  

Mr Blythe was the Chief Steward on the S.S. Nailsea Court and was lost on the 10th March 1943. Age 45. He was the son of Sidney Arthur and Rose Blythe; husband of Eveline Elsie Blythe, of Windsor.  

His daughter, Mrs Beryl Mann has kindly contributed the following recollection of her visit to the ship:  

8^th November 2010  

Dear David  

I was so pleased and privileged when your father telephoned me after our first contact. To be able to talk to him about a shared experience of visiting the Nailsea Court was, since my age of six or seven at the time, something I was only ever to do with my mother and sisters. 

I can’t recall their faces exactly except your grandfather, Captain Lee’s and my father’s but I have always remembered them all as happy and smiling and making our visit a very special time. 

I’m afraid I could not remember the month we visited the ship, so I am not sure whether I would have been six or seven.  I try to compare with the time it would have taken to go to New York as they did and continue their journey within the convoy through that very hazardous area of the North Atlantic, the ship having been torpedoed south of Reykjavik.  Perhaps they had left the London Dock quite sometime before going to New York if they had sailed to Africa first.  

I remember after we had eaten our cooked meal whilst sitting at a long dark wooden table, some of the crew were smiling as they joked about what would happen to the food if we didn’t eat it.  I can’t remember what was on the menu, but I don’t think any of it went to waste!  My father was the Chief Steward but he may have been off duty! We then looked around the ship. We went into my father’s quarters where he sat me up on his bunk bed.  It was a bit crowded in there. Remember there were five of us girls and my mother!  I remember peering into a pillow case where there was a cache (about a third full) of walnuts!  We saw his really thick knitted socks that went inside his sea-boots.  My mother reminded me in later years that I used to knit dish-cloths at school because this was what he preferred to use when he washed himself.  I remember knitting them! 

We were taken to see other parts of the ship.  My older sisters went down to see the engine room and I think we looked down into the hold.  I remember looking down the stairs and whilst standing there one of the men stooped down to me and said he had five boys at home all spaced out age-wise like we were.  It would have been wonderful to have known his name at that time and to recognize it from that long list of casualties which has become so familiar all these years later.  That was a very personal moment for me…..as was the time that your grandfather Captain Lee spent with us as he took us into his own quarters where there was a ‘proper bed’ no less!  I am certain I can remember a red light at the top headboard.  I was in the front of ‘our crowd’ and we asked questions which he patiently answered.  One of mine was about the light. I am not sure whether Captain Lee might have switched anything on just to show us at the time, or whether that particular one would have been permanently glowing, becoming brighter, with an accompanying alarm in an emergency.  I have always since then remembered his kindly face and smile and I can’t tell you what it meant to me to see the lovely portrait photo of him when I discovered it on your site, David.….it didn’t surprise me because that was the image I carried for all the years in my memory, but it certainly made a profound impact! 

Another very memorable part of the visit….I’m not sure whether it was the last thing we did before we left, that we girls with our parents stood at the side of the ship (far side of the photo) looking out across the water, which must have meant that it was facing the mouth of the estuary.  I had often wondered which side we had boarded her until I first saw the photo and it all came back to me! I remember that the sun, which I always believed to be quite low at that point, was shining on the water making it twinkle brightly and whilst we were there a ship passed us.  I was under the impression that the water was quite wide just there because the ship was not very close to us and I think there may have been some mist between us.  It is this last memory that makes me think that the time could have been about September or October of 1942. I would really appreciate being able to place a more accurate date if it is possible to do so.  I was advised on how to look into it when I contacted the Mercantile Marine site accessed through ss Nailsea Court, administered by Billy McGee and his team. Hugh advised but I was unable to cope with much at the time and would find it difficult to pick up the threads of it now.  If there is anyone who could help with that I would gladly pay the expense incurred. 

My best wishes to you David. 

Yours sincerely, 

Beryl  Mann

Additional Note from David Lee 

My father, Bob Lee, son of Captain Lee, Master of the Nailsea Court, is able to confirm that the ship was infact berthed at Victoria Dock in London in September 1942 when Captain Lee took over command of the ship from Captain Hewitt. My father joined his mother to stay on board the ship and they spent a few weeks with his father. We are pretty sure that it was September rather than October as by then my father was enrolled on a teacher training course.