IMAGINE being thrown into fighting in a World War at the age of 15, with enemy planes flying above your head doing their best to torpedo your ship and you into the murky depths of the cold sea.
For Badsey man Tom Pim this was no figment of imagination. This was the reality of a Russian Convoy run deep in the throes of the Second World War, as he watched colleagues die in one of the grimmest atmospheres imaginable.
Tom, aged 75 today, of Bretforton Road, has now had his war stories brought to live through his book -- 'Destiny of Life', which details his life on the ocean wave during the conflict.
Originally written in 1993, he sent off his script to a Canadian publishing company, but the firm, like so many ships in the Second World War, was sunk after running up huge debts.
Six years later, the book has resurfaced through Hertfordshire publishing firm Able Publishing, who contacted him about bringing his tale to the shelves.
The book first came about from his stories of the earlier years of his naval life.
He said: "I used to tell people about my experiences during the war and then one day out shopping my wife bought me a block of paper and said now you can write that story you keep talking about."
The book is told through the pseudonym of Tom O'Dell, a friend who was killed in the conflict.
It all began just after he was born -- 75 years ago in Belfast when his parents died at an early age and he was put into care at the Orange Lodge orphanage in the city.
His early years were spent in Barnardos homes in Woodford, Stepney, and Washington, and also three years with a family in Finningham, Suffolk, -- years he describes as "the happiest of my life."
He then volunteered himself to Russell Coates Naval School in Dorset and then found himself on board a convoy bound for Murmansk at the age of 15.
He said: "It was hell on earth. There were people dying all around. It was so cold and when people were blown up they didn't bleed, the blood just froze black on the spot.
"You had about four hours of daylight up there. The planes would fly overhead for that time, and then when it got dark you had the U-boats to worry about, which would finish off the ships hit by the aircraft."
During this mission he received his one and only shrapnel injury and spent time in a temporary Russian hospital in Ekonomya where it was so cold they put tarpaulins over the patients to keep them warm.
He said: "They took them off in the morning and had to shake the snow off them."
"I was only injured once and that was enough, but there were many times during the war I thought I was going to die."
He also recalled his time in Tobruk on a mission to North Africa where he saw badly wounded colleagues fall into the sea and drown after their ships were hit.
"They had to hang the injured over the side of these pontoons in cargo nets as there was nowhere else to put them and of course when the boats were hit, they just fell into the sea."
His efforts on these convoys did not go unmerited, and by the time he was 18 he had been awarded five campaign medals as well as the white beret -- a Russian military honour.
However, despite spending 37 years in the Navy, his views on the English service of the day were not exactly favourable.
He said: "I don't think people realise that those serving in the Merchant Navy had their pay stopped when their ships were sunk.
"Those who survived in Russian hospitals received no pay and did not get any pay until they joined their next ship."
Destiny of Life is available for £6.99, plus £2 p&p, from Able Publishing, 13 Station Road, Knebworth, Herts, SG3 6AP.
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