Copy right Simon Oliver 2003

My grandfather was born in 1900 in Manchester and was the elder of two brothers. By the end of the first decade they were one of the few families who owned a car which was put to very good use by going out on day trips. The song mentions him going to Blackpool for the day, which they undoubtedly did as a family and it was here that his love of the sea grew. 1914 saw the start of the First World War, but it was not until 1917 that he joined the Royal Navy and even then he only got in by lying about his age- he was seventeen.

By the time 1918 came round he had seen more of life in it rawest form than someone of his young age should have seen.  He had seen friends killed in action and he survived near decapitation by a propeller blade though he was badly injured and his friend was killed. Through out all of this he lovingly kept a camera and took a photographic history of this time. The photographs are still in the family today.

After the war he stayed in the navy for a further two years after which he left and started driving his own cab.   When war was declared in 1939 the admiralty sent an invitation for my grandfather to come back as a commissioned officer. However he felt that he had done his piece for king and country in the last war and so he declined, deciding to take his mechanical skills to Fords in Dagenham to help in the war effort.

However he found that while not being in the navy, the Germans were still going to have a pop at him. Whilst returning home from work on his bike and meeting my aunt -who was eight at the time- three German fighters tried to shoot them both up.  Both he and my aunt escaped the attack by jumping behind a wall but their bikes were no more than scrap metal by the time the Germans had finished.

The song then mentions 1953 and a new enemy which took the form of cancer and very sadly took my grandfathers life. He left behind a grieving widow and two daughters who missed him terribly. But throughout his life his love of the sea never left him and his wish was that when he died, he was to be cremated and his ashes to be scattered over the sea.

My grandmother would often tell me wonderful stories of his adventures and would frequently mention that his ashes were scattered at Leigh-on-Sea in Essex (oddly enough I've ended up living in nearby Southend). The Church on the hill in the song is St Clements church in Leigh and I often go that way on my travels and will say hello to my grandfather.

The song has been a project on the drawing board for a very long time now and it is only recently that I finished writing it as a tribute to a very remarkable man, and though I never met him he is someone whom I have known all my life

Simon Oliver

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