We marched out of Portsmouth dock gates the sailors mechanics and our Grenadiers

We marched out of Portsmouth dock gates, the sailors, mechanics and our Grenadiers. But how to get back to the gunnery school four miles away? I asked a bus conductor. ‘Hop on lads,’ he said and told the passengers there was going to be a slight detour. We must have looked a sight.”The Grenadier sergeant was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. The Llanthony’s young commander got the Distinguished Service Cross, the first Canadian decorated in the Second World War. He served through the war and returned to Canada in the Royal Canadian Navy, ultimately commanding an aircraft carrier, and retiring in 1974.After the war the Llanthony was bought for charters in the eastern Mediterranean.

In 1995 she was found dilapidated in Rhodes harbour by her present owner, Nicola McGrail. The yacht had extensive renovation and her Daimler-Benz engines were rebuilt. She is now a showpiece in Marmaris, restored to her former glory and with all her original fittings.. British immigration officers will be allowed to patrol French railway stations and check passengers boarding Eurostar trains to the UK as part of an agreement to clamp down on asylum-seekers. British immigration officers will be allowed to patrol French railway stations and check passengers boarding Eurostar trains to the UK as part of an agreement to clamp down on asylum-seekers.
The accord, announced yesterday, will also allow French officials to check passenger documents from the summer of 2001 at London’s Waterloo station and Ashford, Kent, the two Eurostar stations where passengers can board for France In practice, the asylum traffic is mostly one-way.

In three years, 9,000 asylum-seekers entered the UK by this route.The announcement will be seen by civil liberties campaigners as further evidence that the Home Secretary, who signed the deal, is bowing to pressure from the Tory right for tougher action on asylum.”The result of this signing will be that British immigration officials will be able to check people’s passports and their credentials as they board Eurostar trains. This is a major step forward,” Mr Straw said yesterday.A permanent UK immigration office could be set up at the Paris station once the accord has been ratified by French and British parliaments, which should take about a year.The agreement, signed by Mr Straw at a meeting of home affairs ministers in Brussels means that in theory all asylum-seekers could be stopped from boarding the Eurostar in France. Those without the correct papers will be barred from entry, but the Home Office confirmed that genuine asylum-seekers also could be blocked under the European human rights convention which requires them to make their applications at the country of entry.The immigration officers will have flexibility to admit people they regard as genuine, if they have family already in Britain. “It’s not heartless,” said a Home Office official.The British officers will be able to ask passengers for passports and visas at Paris’s Gare du Nord, Lille and Calais Eurostar stations.

Similar arrangements are already in place with Belgium, but legal technicalities meant a new agreement had to struck with France.Until 1997, there was a “gentlemen’s agreement between London and Paris that anybody arriving in the country without proper documents could be dispatched straight back”, said Mr Straw. But when that was scrapped the repatriation of illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers became much more difficult. Mr Straw added: “The fact that we are bilaterally able to agree with one of the major European players, France, today to strengthen our mutual border controls shows how much other European countries respect the fact that we are in a different position from the mainland continent.”Asked whether there could yet be emergency legislation to halt known but unconvicted soccer thugs from travelling to Holland and Belgium for the Euro 2000 soccer tournament next month, Mr Straw said: “We continue to look at whether it’s possible even at this late stage.” The Home Secretary also signed a criminal intelligence-sharing deal under the Shengen agreement on cross-border controls.. Belgium and the Netherlands are to re-impose border controls during the Euro 2000 football championship, under plans to combat the threat of violence from English supporters. Belgium and the Netherlands are to re-impose border controls during the Euro 2000 football championship, under plans to combat the threat of violence from English supporters.
The move, likely to cause severe disruption at ports and borders next month, reflects growing concern over possibletrouble during the tournament, after recent incidents involving fans of English clubs.Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, who yesterday held talks in Brussels with his Belgian and Dutch counterparts, was told about the temporary re-instatement of border controls for the duration of the tournament, which starts next month.After his discussions, the Home Secretary said that both Belgium and Holland were “determined to crack down fast and hard on trouble-makers and, if they have good information at the point of entry, not to let them in”.Although both countries are members of the Schengen open borders agreement, the pact allows them to re-impose border controls temporarily under special circumstances. The Belgian government used the tactic earlier this year to coincide with an amnesty for some illegal immigrants.Mr Straw said he supported the move, and said that the restoration of borders was not targeted specifically at English fans.