SIXTY five years on from the end of the Second World War, it seems the town of Barry has finally decided to completely forget its Merchant Seamen.

In two World Wars, from every street in Barry, men left their home – no uniform, just a sea-bag, and joined a ship in Barry.

And when they were lost at sea, their money stopped on the day that ship was sunk: they were considered to be ‘Discharged at Sea’.

Listen to Winston Churchill in the Second World War…’The only thing that really frightened me during the War was the U-boat peril…the Battle of the Atlantic was the dominating factor all through the War. Never for one moment should we forget that everything happening elsewhere, on land, at sea or in the air, depended on its outcome’. Well, the people of Barry have forgotten: they can dig deep in their pockets for money for a poppy to boost the £35 million a year that goes to fund the British Legion’s range of welfare services for ‘The Armed Forces’.

In the British Legion displays in the big stores in Barry the talk is all about ‘The Armed Forces’. They offer not one single reference to the Merchant Navy.

Fine in towns like Aldershot…but in Barry?

Perhaps it is because the graves of Barry’s dead in World War Two lie in the deep waters of the oceans and poppies do not float on the waters of the Atlantic.

Let me tell you what World War Two was really like for the Merchant seamen of Barry… From more than 180 ships lost from Barry, let us join the Rose Schiaffino in Barry in September 1940. She had been captured from the French earlier in the year. She was old, small and her engines were old.

The ship was totally unsuited to conditions in the Atlantic. She carried a crew of 37 – 27 of them were over 40, another 12 owere over 50, and two were over 60! Well – do fellers that old need a poppy?

Oh – there was a boy aged 15 and another aged 16.

She staggered across the Atlantic, straggling behind the convoy on several occasions. With a small crew, the sailors and firemen were on ‘four hours on four hours off’ – just the bare 96 hours a week.

Rose Schiaffino was bound for Wabana, in Newfoundland where she would discharge her 4,000 tons of coal and load iron-ore. She got there, loaded 4,200 tons or iron-ore and sailed round Newfoundland to join a convoy for home. She got to St Johns, Newfoundland and left there on October 27, 1941.

Rose Schiaffino was never heard from again: it is thought she was torpedoed by U-374 on October 31, 1941. The cargo of steel would have taken her to the bottom in seconds. All hands were lost.

Are you thinking it might, perhaps, be worth a poppy?

By the way, the 16-year-old boy was Charles Burman Stiff, the youngest son of Elsie Dehaney Stiff of 75 Thompson Street. Mrs Stiff had three sons.

William George Stiff had been already lost on the Magdalana on September 18, 1940, when he was 19.

Joseph Sidney Stiff was soon to be lost on the Baron Newlands, March 16, 1942, when he was 21.

Worth a poppy? In America they would have made a film - 'Saving Seaman Stiff’.

I have been thinking. I was about the same age as Charles – I was 17 on December 9, 1941, I had just left a ship called the Bereby.

I am 85 now, as Charles would have been, and I have had a long and happy life. Not Charles though, or William, or Joseph - indeed, when you think about it, what sort of life could Mrs Elsie Dehaney Stiff ever have?

I think I’ll go out and buy a poppy for each of them.

Hang on though: would they mind me buying them for the Merchant Navy?

David Simpson High Street Barry