Video tribute to the sea voyages of Leonard Little (Newcastle-upon-Tyne) 1939 - 1949

[Jon Edwards]

Last year I embarked on a video project in tribute to my late father-in-law's time in the Merchant Navy and during WW2 the Royal Navy from 1939 to 1949.

His name was Leonard Little from Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK and he began his sea career as a cleaner before he became a stoker.

The video took a lot longer to complete than I had anticipated, partly because I wrote a song to go with it (Old Sea Legs) and partly because researching the various ships trying to find good quality photographs and specification information proved rather challenging at times especially where some of the ships' names had been changed over the years. It includes photos from his note books detailing the ships he sailed aboard, the ports he visited and other information that I was able to gather from various different sources.

Ships Len sailed aboard include:

HMS Chaser
HMS Ruler
RMS Empress of Scotland
SS Beaconsfield
SS Bourbon
SS Calvin Coggin
SS Dalewood
SS Dalmore
SS Esturia
SS Europa
SS Glaisdale
SS Granhill
SS Marquesa
SS Mistley
SS Nela
SS Thistledale

The video can be viewed by clicking this link: Old Sea Legs

If anyone has any questions or interest in any of the ships or in undertaking a similar family project, please feel to message me and I will do my best to help and if there is anyone out there who may have known Len or has/had a family member who may have sailed on the same ships as him, I would be delighted to hear.

Jon E

[j.sabourn]

Well done to Jon . If there is anything in the village paper in August about July 6 th. Will send you the whole paper as I receive via email , maybe you could forward to Fouro who may wish to take out any parts applicable to pass on to those who keep a Watch on that date every year. Cheers JS

[Johnny Kieran]

Great tribute, well done.

[James Curry]

Jon , what a great thing to have done . Your father inlaw would be amazed at the tribute. Thank you for sharing.
James

[Jon Edwards]

Jon , what a great thing to have done . Your father inlaw would be amazed at the tribute. Thank you for sharing.
James

Hi James,

Thank you for your kind comments.

As with most such projects I suspect, it turned into something far bigger than I had originally imagined but as I started getting into it, I became keen to find out more about all the ships Len had been on and I'm extremely pleased to have been able to obtain photos of each one mentioned in his sea diaries. It took me quite a while though, ultimately solved with a pointer I was able to obtain from Len's National Archives records, to realise that HMS Mersey and HMS Golden Hind were not ships at all but actually land bases! He started at sea aged 19 and that makes his journeys around the world and the observations he made especially during WW2, all the more impressive in my eyes.

Thanks again,

Jon