Paddy’s arrival at the Hook: “It was still a couple of hours till dawn when we dropped anchor in the Hook of Holland. Snow covered everything and the flakes blew in a slant across the cones of the lamps and confused the glowing discs that spaced out the untrodden quay. I hadn’t known that Rotterdam…

Paddy’s first experience of overt Nazi power Nazi Parade in Goch, Westphalia, 1933, “The town was hung with National Socialist flags and the window of an outfitter’s shop next door held a display of Party equipment: swastika arm-bands, daggers for the Hitler Youth, blouses for Hitler Maidens and brown shirts for grown-up S.A. men; swastika…

Rotterdam “I hadn’t gone far before the open door of the Groote Kirk – the cathedral attached to the enormous belfry – beckoned me inside. Filled with dim early morning light, the concavity of grey masonry and whitewash joined in pointed arches high overhead and the floor diminished along the nave in a chessboard of…

“I sped down the gangway clutching my rucksack and my stick while the others dashed back to the steps . I was signalling frantically back as the hawsers were cast loose and the gangplank shipped. Then they were gone. The anchor-chain clattered through the ports and the vessel turned into the current with a wail…