Hi Catherine. I found that photo online. It said that it was taken in 1950 but was the only photo I could find of the shipyards that was close in time to the war. My grandfather was working in the shipyards during the war and my father once told me that he was building 'wooden liberty ships'. So, I don't know exactly what type of ships that he was working on. He dropped a hammer on his foot which resulted in a blood clot that travelled to his heart and that's what caused the heart attack.

I think he was glad to have had an excuse not to work. In the 80s I met a man who had worked for my grandmother who told me that one time he had gone into a bar one night in Bellingham and found my grandfather standing on a table leading everyone in the bar in a sing along. That was definitely not her style.

As to women on warships, I know that you know that it is a long-standing belief that having a woman on a ship was considered to be bad luck.

Things have changed since you were in the Navy.

In 2010 when I was stuck in Bahrain my English girlfriend and I picked up four young ratings on shore leave off of, I guess a missile cruiser at a cheap spa club and rounded up a couple of other women that she knew and took them out for a night on the town. They had a great time and were extremely grateful as only a bunch of 19/20 year kids could be getting wined and dined (though not shagged which they sort of deserved).

They said that there was constant sex on the ship. One of the guys was either a petty officer or a chief of some type and had a small private office on the ship and as a result was in big demand because he could provide a degree of privacy. They said that everyone went to sea with porn downloaded on their i phones and that the women invariably had the best porn and after a few weeks at sea everyone was swapping it around. I think that this was not necessarily the Navy in which you served.

I have some other lurid tales of Navy wives on the beach in Bahrain and the shenanigans that they got up to. Not that I'm complaining having been on more than one occasion on the receiving end of those escapades. You've read about one of them which was thinly disguised as fiction.

In any case I really appreciate your comment. Thanks for reading.