"Somewhere Beyond The Sea...My Lover Waits For Me.."

A Memory of Portsmouth.

As a young lad I had great eyesight for long distances. As we sat on the pebbled beach at Southsea it was always me that first spotted a slight bump in the horizon as the then huge incoming ocean liners, The Queen Mary, The Queen Elizabeth, The Mauretaina and many more coming home from New York down the Solent towards Southampton. I enjoyed being scoffed at for a good half an hour or more before others managed to notice them approaching with the telltale whisp of smoke from her funnels.

Later on I worked one summer holidays as a waiter at the Seaview Hotel on the Isle of Wight where we got a grandstand view of these great ships sailing by from this exact vantage point.

I had my first kiss on the seawall at Seaview when a lovely Dutch girl called Riet Berendsen took a fancy to me. How great was that as the sun set and the ships sailed by ? I wonder where she is now ?