A chance discovery at a local open day stirred up vivid family memories for Leither Joan

IT must have been exciting for the young table maid as she made her way north from her home in Devon to Scotland, bound for work in the fine Murrayfield mansion of a local well-to-do family.

It was a Saturday in 1926, and 25-year-old Mary Gooding had paid a whole 1 for her one-way, second-class cruise on board the SS Royal Fusilier, a 2.1 tonne steamship berthed in Wapping in preparation for the voyage to Leith.

On board this fine vessel - which was described at the time as a "miniature liner", with her grand fittings and impressive fixtures - was chief engineer Archie "Nobby" Clark.

Ten years older than Mary, he'd already seen the world as a merchant seaman. Now 35, his thoughts had turned to settling down, the London-Leith "commute" less challenging than the Atlantic routes he was used to sailing.

As the Royal Fusilier steamed northwards, somewhere between the Thames and the Forth, the chief engineer and the table maid met.

Their destiny was sealed.

Love may have bloomed on the Royal Fusilier, but there would be no romantic end for this fine vessel. Today she lies embedded in the mud, 46m below the surface of the Forth.

According to those divers determined to endure the chill of the estuary waters, she is tipped on to her port side, brass portholes still shimmering slightly in the murky water, her surface well preserved and home to colonies of marine growth.

A few miles away lies the broken remains of her almost identical "sister" ship, the SS Royal Archer, scattered across the sea bed some 15 miles west of May Island.

Stablemates in the London and Edinburgh Shipping Company, war with Germany transformed them into Merchant Navy workhorses, ferrying cargo between Scotland and England's capital cities, gum and paste for manufacturing, paper and that most crucial wartime commodity, food.

To be on board one when it was sunk by a Nazi attack would be bad enough.

Yet Archie, with his unsuspecting wife Mary and their daughter Joan waiting at home in Leith, ended up fighting for his life on both.

Incredibly the loss of the vessels just months apart did not even merit a mention in newspapers at the time.

Understandably, though, they dominated the childhood memories of Archie's daughter Joan Woodburn, now 79.

Now thanks to another quirk of fate, her vivid recollections of the Fusilier's unique role in bringing her parents together and both vessels' dramatic demise, are helping bring wartime history to life.

Tomorrow she will be a special guest of honour at Trinity House museum in Leith, where maritime history experts will explore the fates of the Forth's many wrecks as part of Scottish Archaeology Month.

Historic Scotland's maritime unit will reveal footage of a sonar survey of the Firth's most famous wreck, HMS Campania - one of Cunard's first great liners which sunk in 1918 - and a Grumman Avenger torpedo bomber.

Movingly for Joan, they'll also unveil recent underwater photography of the Royal Archer.

It will be a poignant event for the pensioner who spent years searching for two striking models of the vessels which she graphically recalled from her childhood, only to finally find them just a few miles away from her Portobello home, at Trinity House.

"I always remembered these huge models of the Fusilier and the Archer from when I was a little girl," says Joan, of Bryce Avenue.

"My mother would go to the shipping company offices in Bernard Street to pick up my father's wages and they were there. They were beautifully made, big with lots of detail and I loved to look at them because they reminded me of my father.

"When the offices closed, I always wondered what had happened to them."

Joan had given up hope of ever setting eyes on them again until last year when she popped into Trinity House for its open day.

"I walked in and, oh my goodness, there was the Archer," she says. "When I walked upstairs I found the Fusilier too.

"I'd been looking for years, and there they were."

Becoming reacquainted with the two vessels after so many years reopened poignant memories of when, as a little girl, she waved her dad off to serve on the Fusilier and the Archer.

The outbreak of war had transformed the glamorous liners into Merchant Navy workhorses, a far cry from the days when they'd cater for passengers in plush surroundings, serving breakfast for three shillings, dinner for four.

As war raged, Joan and her mother often had no idea where Archie might be. Which made his arrival on the doorstep of their home at 206 Leith Walk one bitter February evening in 1940, dishevelled and barely dressed, all the more disturbing.

"Of course there were no telephones, so we didn't know his ship had gone down," recalls Joan. "We heard a taxi outside, which was unusual enough. Then out he walked.

"He was wrapped in a blanket, wearing just long johns and shoes that didn't fit - he'd lost everything when the ship went down.

"He'd been in Leith hospital, checked over and just sent home."

Her father had been on board the Archer, loaded with a cargo of gum and paste bound for Leith, when the blast from an underwater mine ripped through her bow.

The explosion destroyed three of her lifeboats and engulfed the wireless room in steam from burst pipes.

The captain frantically ordered three remaining lifeboats to be launched only for one to capsize, throwing the ship's quartermaster overboard.

Unable to swim, he drifted towards the damaged bow of the vessel, supported by his lifejacket.

In chaos, the remaining 28 crew, including Archie, struggled to launch the remaining lifeboats, pausing to rescue two stricken colleagues on the way.

The Royal Archer's demise was rapid - just 30 minutes after the explosion had occurred, she was gone. There was little time for recuperation for her crew either. Joan recalls her father being sent back to sea almost immediately.

This time he returned to the vessel which held such fond memories - the Royal Fusilier.

She was ferrying a cargo of rice and paper from London to Leith in June 1941 - an easy target for the German aircraft hunting for their prey along the east coast.

She was seven miles east of Amble in Northumberland when she was bombed.

As she began to list, the crew of 15 piled into lifeboats only to be told to return to the vessel while it was towed north by one of two destroyers in the area.

Seven miles north east of the Bass Rock, she could go no further and capsized.

Hugh Morrison, Collections Registrar for Historic Scotland, who runs the museum, says Joan's links with the two vessels has been invaluable in helping bring history to life.

"It is fantastic to have someone like Joan present who can bring the personal story to life of those who lived and served on some of Leith's most famous vessels," he says.

"We are delighted that she will be here this weekend to share her story with visitors."

n The Trinity House, Secrets of the Forth, Archaeology Day takes place on Saturday. Entry is free.

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