MY uncle, John Carmichael, served with the Royal Navy as a commander engineer and did escort voyages to Murmansk.
One of his favourite stories was of the time when the seas were mountainous to the extent that one could see on occasions the keel of other vessels in the convoy, resulting in a young rating asking him if he thought the ship would "coup". What really rankled with him and the ship's crew was that the Russians would not allow them ashore, despite them being exhausted, badly in need of some comfort and warm food.
Alastair Douglas,
31 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
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