December is a busy month: cards to write, presents to buy, quantities of alcohol to consume - and with all this going on there is little room for logical blogging. Luckily, I am committed to illogical blogging which is devoid of meaning and therefore I can carry on in my own sweet way, dipping into the pond of inconsequence with the gloved fist of uncertainty. Today it brings to the surface the Empire Medway.
This is a scan of an old print of unknown provenance that came into my possession in ways I have long forgotten. It shows the ship, the Empire Medway, which, at the time, had the designation "HMT" or His Majesty's Troopship. It was built in 1929 and for the first 21 years it went under the name of the Eastern Prince, before being renamed in 1950. During the war it served as a troopship and its finest hour was probably in February 1945 when it served as the accommodation and support vessel for Winston Churchill's staff at the Yalta Conference. After the war it continued to ferry troops around the hot spots of the world until 1951 when in was involved in a collision in Valletta Harbour in Malta. Two years later it was scrapped, leaving behind a handful of memories and the odd old photograph.
This reminds me of an old newspaper clipping I used to have, advertising upcoming voyages of the Lusitania!
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