It was recently decreed that September 3 would be officially known as Merchant Navy Day.
On that day, the Red Ensign can be flown in remembrance of the 80,000 seamen who, having volunteered for a life at sea, suddenly found their ships were sitting targets for the torpedo and mine between 1939-45.
In 1939 a national sea training school was set up at Sharpness in Gloucestershire.
An "old lady of the sea", way past her sea-going days, was towed out of London to her new berth where she became the National Sea Training School T.S. Vindicatrix.
Training was carried out until 1966 when the ship was scrapped and the school closed - but not before 70,000 lads had passed through the gates to join the British Merchant Navy.
The lads who trained at the "Vindi" savoured those days and formed The Training Ship Vindicatrix Association (TSVA). It has about 2,500 members all over the world.
In September hundreds gather in Sharpness where life is relived to the full which includes drinking the Dockers Club dry.
-Mike Oliver, treasurer, Sussex Branch TSVA Meadway Court, Southwick
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