Take a 16 year old cabin boy with the New Zealand Shipping Company who became a 60s pop singer and party animal capable of leaving the Rolling Stones standing.

Add a sprinkling of veterans of the World War II Arctic Convoys, a ship called Discovery and a patron saint of lost things and navigators.

Then throw in the navies of two countries, 7 Russian TV crews, a Russian-speaking Scottish veteran, disbelieving dignitaries from the British Embassy in Moscow and more inexplicable, if not supernatural, coincidences than you’d dare invent.

And you’re not half way there.

This is a big story – one, in part, beyond reason.

Strange beginnings

Des Cox, now a documentary film maker and director, was that cabin boy cum half of EMI’s 60s singing duo, Des & Dave, later working on the legendary Candid Camera prankfest with Jonathan Routh.

As a seafarer, he had an ambition to make a documentary on the experiences of those earlier seamen who had sailed on the crucial supply convoys to the north coast of Russia during the second Word War.

He began to plan, to do research, to make the contacts, to ask for help from the armed forces and diplomatic services of the various nations involved. The obstacles were high and every one he confronted spawned more.

Sitting in a town square in Palermo, on a voyage connected to another project, he was on the brink of giving up. While coming to the point of decision he was taking video film of the square while his colleague David Hutchings was taking stills. In the square was a statue of San Antonino who later turned out to be the patron Saint of lost things and – an appropriate twin responsibility – of navigators.

When they got back to the ship, the two men downloaded the shots they’d taken and were astonished, in a still shot, to see the head of the statue bathed in a strange warm light, almost a glow. There was no natural explanation for the phenomenon and Des Cox went on to have the photograph checked out at digital laboratories for confirmation that the image had not been in any way retouched.

But before then, as the ship left Palermo, everything started to go right with his Atlantic Convoy project.

A woman approached him on the ship. Her husband, who was also aboard, was a convoy veteran – Stanley Colvin. In fact Mr Colvin had sailed on the very first convoy, taking two squadrons of RAF pilots and their crews to Russia to help them defend Murmansk.

All Des Cox had to hand was a personal, not a professional, video camera. It was summer. The ship was in the Mediterranean. The skies were blue, without a cloud in sight. This was hardly the context in which he had imagined recording the memories of a Convoy veteran. But Stanley Colvin was there, he was willing to talk and the job needed to be done.

Stand by for more mysterious coincidences.

As the old man walked to take position at the seaward side of the deck, a heavy fog suddenly shrouded the sun. The thick, chill grey and the short visibility immediately conjured conditions familiar to sailors on the convoys.

Stanley Colvin talked, his voice restored to clarity and confidence, telling how his ship – one of 5 in an unescorted convoy- had been spotted by a German reconnaissance plane. This always presaged an attack by U-boats, surface warships and aircraft, an attack they couldn’t possibly survive.

As Mr Colvin spoke, right in the centre of the picture, immediately in front of them, an old submarine suddenly surfaced, just as an attacking WW2 German U-boat would have done – and shortly afterwards vanished into the fog without responding to ship-to-ship communication.

There were other astonishing and poignant coincidences that we will find a way of telling alongside this story. But a major change for Des Cox was that as soon as he got home he was almost besieged by a stream of communications from all of the international authorities he had been trying to persuade to cooperate on his Arctic Convoy documentary. They would all help.

Was someone steering a passage through the reefs?

Discovery to discovery – the voyage to Murmansk

A man whose partying left the Stones for dead was never likely to take the short route to making this docmentary.

Knowing that the memory, however sharp, sheds detail as the years move on, Des Cox hit upon the largest of large schemes. He would take some veterans of the Russian convoys back – in reality, by sea and to Murmansk.

He felt that these conditions and this experience were bound to unleash memories sealed in another time.

He booked 200 of the 600 berths on the MV Discovery – for 6-8 Arctic Convoy veterans and their families in company with veterans from other convoys, like those to Malta and the Far East.

On 19th July 2009, as the MV Discovery prepared to set sail from Harwich, a Royal Navy bugler signalled the hoisting of over fifty very rare house flags – the greatest display of such flags in the world. Each one represented shipping companies from all over the globe that once operated ships sailing on those vital and deadly wartime convoys.

As the ship left the quayside at Harwich, local tugs, dressed overall, came out to pay their respects with a water display as, together with a Royal Navy vessel – the P Class HMS Tracker – they escorted Discovery out to sea.  The pride on the faces of all those convoy veterans, at this respect paid to their service, is something Des Cox can never forget.

On passage, the veterans had the run of the ship and the bridge, some even taking the helm for the first time since the reason they were on the Discovery. Their sea legs and their memories returned in tandem. And the cameras rolled.

Then, in the far north, as the ship sailed east into Russian waters, a Russia warship appeared to greet them, a signal of the VIP welcome ahead.

On the way into Murmansk, Discovery passed several other Russian warships at anchor. As she passed alongside a large aircraft carrier, the ship’s band struck up and her crew lined her flight-deck in tribute to the veterans and the visit.

Other music from another source began to drown out that from the carrier’s band. On the quayside, as Discovery came in to dock, was a full military band, surrounded by no fewer than 7 TV news crews from stations across Russia, all waiting to greet her honoured passengers. Des Cox describes the day that followed as ‘a mini State Occasion’.

The Russian ceremonies

As the ship berthed the weather performed another unexpected half revolution, as it had done earlier when Cox was about to film Stanley Colvin. This time the cold grey Arctic mist cleared in place of sun and blue skies. It could have been the Mediterranean.

The veterans’ party was driven in a fleet of coaches, each with its own police escort, lights flashing – to the memorial to the Great Patriotic War, high on the hills above Murmansk. It too was was now bathed in sunshine.

Waiting there to receive them, amidst a gala of multi-colourful flags, were more military bands, a full guard of honour, Russian WW2 veterans and a host of top politicians and military VIPs. These included the Governor of the Murmansk region, the Mayor of Murmansk, the Admiral of the Russian Northern Fleet – and representatives from the British Embassy in Moscow, gratifyingly dumbstruck at what was happening.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime did-it-really-happen, one of the most colourful and emotional moments possible. It had been made possible by Des Cox, working alone. Talk about ‘the power of one’.

Now was the time for the speeches. First came the Russian delegation. Then the response from the veterans’ party. The translator approached Des Cox, as the leader of the group, to offer his services. Cox shook his head and pointed to one of the veterans, who was to do the honours. The translator was clearly worried that the demands of such an occasion would be too much for an elderly man.

But Cox knew Jock Dempster – as will those who saw him pictured as they read the For Argyll report of the international Tribute to the Arctic Convoy veterans arranged by the Harrison family at Pool House at Loch Ewe in October 2008. And Cox and Dempster were about to spring a surprise of their own.

As his name was called and the wiry, dauntlessly erect figure of the elderly man stepped to the microphone, the crowds stilled, silent, nervous even.

In Cox’s words: ‘Jock lifted his shoulders and started to speak…in perfectly clear and fluent Russian.

‘It took about a minute for it to register with the crowd, such was the shock.  On behalf of Des Cox and the veterans, Jock paid heartfelt thanks to the Russians in their own language for all they had done – for their welcome on this day and for the sacrifices, huge beyond imagining, that they had made in WW2, without which that dreadful War would never have been won.

‘It is doubtful if the Russians had ever received such wholehearted gratitude before. There wasn’t a dry eye to be seen. The emotion was overwhelming’.

This was a day when strong men of several nations cried together, touched by shared remembrance, grief and joy.

The ceremony in the Barents Sea – and the weather’s last strange turn

Cox’s plan was to hold a service of remembrance on Discovery’s open decks off the Northern tip of Norway. The shipping company was against it on the grounds of safety. Although it was summer time, the weather in the Barents Sea is cold, damp and windy. The combination of chill with rolling decks as the ship responded to wind-whipped waves was deemed too great a risk for elderly men.

But, again, just a couple of hours before the service was to be held inside, the weather suddenly lifted, revealing bright sunshine, blue skies and a windless deck. An RAF Nimrod, out from RAF Kinloss in Perthshire, passed overhead in tribute. Discovery was dressed overall. Everyone on board attended. Hymns were sung.

Then, as a bugler sounded The Last Post, the ship’s Red Ensign was lowered, wreathes were cast into the sea and twenty-thousand poppies showered down over the decks of the ship.

A class-ridden Government, eventually and grudgingly, had given the merchant seamen of the Arctic Convoys the physically insignificant Arctic Star lapel button in return for their sacrifice.

Des Cox, on behalf of a nation marching to a different drum, gave these representatives of those heroic actions and of all their fellows lost in action and to time, a unique experience marking international recognition of their contribution to freedom.

Justice was done.

Back in that square in Palermo, we’ll never know if a fleeting smile passed across the face of San Antonino, patron Saint of lost things and navigators, who seemed to have had a hand in all of this.

Over the next week, For Argyll will publish – and link here at the foot of this astonishing story, a summary of Stanley Colvin’s narrative, with yet another strange conclusion; and an account of Des Cox’s own colourful career. Keep an eye here for these linked stories to arrive.

We will also announce when the documentary being made by Des Cox’s company, Snowbow, is being aired. We understand that it has already been booked to air on Russian television stations.

The photograph above of San Antonio was taken by copyright holder, David Hutchings. The other photographs accompanying this article are by copyright holder, Des Cox . None may not be reproduced without permission.

Related Posts

• Jack Harrison – another link in the story of the Arctic Convoys at Loch Ewe (1)
• Jock Dempster: hell and healing – two voyages to Murmansk (4)
• Contact from Newcastle Arctic Convoy veteran on For Argyll article on 2008 tribute at Loch Ewe (0)
• Original photos now added to Roy Elwood’s story of Arctic Convoy Service on HMS Zambesi (0)
• Roy Elwood & HMS Zambesi at war: Scapa Flow, the Arctic Convoys, Sørøy, SS Henry Bacon, King Haakon… (25)

---

The Latest News from ForArgyll delivered via email, weekly or daily. You know it makes sense!

---

Comments (rss) | Respond | Ping | | Print This Post