by Bear Grylls
The next day, the storm building menacingly, Walter boarded the car ferry, the Princess Victoria, for Larne, in Northern Ireland. The passengers were reassured that the vessel was fit to sail. Time was money, and the ferry duly left port.
What happened that night has affected the towns of Larne and Stranraer to this very day. Preventable accidents – where man has foolishly challenged nature and lost – do that to people.
Note to self: take heed.
CHAPTER 3
Walter and Margaret’s house, on the shores of Donaghadee, was known simply as ‘Portavo Point’.
The lovingly built house commanded sweeping views over the coastline, where on a clear day you could see over the distant islands and out to sea.
It was, and still is, a magical place.
But not on that night.
On board the ferry, Walter watched the Scottish coastline fade as the steel, flat-hulled ship slid out into the jaws of the awaiting tempest. The crossing became progressively rougher and rougher as the weather deteriorated even further. Until, only a few miles from her Northern Irish destination, the Princess Victoria found herself in the middle of one of the most ferocious Irish Sea storms ever witnessed.
Initially the ferry rode it, but a weakness in the ferry stern doors would prove disastrous.
Slowly the doors started to ship in water. As the seawater poured in and the waves began to break over the freeboard, the ship began to lose her ability to manoeuvre or make headway.
The bilges, also, were struggling to cope. Leaking stern doors and an inability to clear excess water are a killer combination in any storm.
It was only a matter of time before the sea would overpower her.
Soon, swung broadside to the waves by the power of the wind, the Princess Victoria began to lurch and tilt under the weight of the incoming water. The captain ordered the lifeboats to be lowered.
A survivor told the Ulster High Court that Walter was heard giving out the instructions: ‘Carry on giving out life jackets to the women and children.’
Over the roar of the wind and storm, the captain and his crew ushered the panic-stricken passengers into the lifeboats.
No one was to know that they were lowering the women and children to their deaths.
As the lifeboats were launched, the passengers were trapped in that ‘dead man’s zone’ between the hull of the steel ferry and the breaking white water of the oncoming waves.
In the driving wind and rain this was a fatal place to be caught.
The lifeboats lurched, then pitched repeatedly under the violence of the breaking waves. They were unable to escape from the side of the ferry. The crew were powerless to make progress against the ferocity of the wind and waves, until eventually, one by one, almost every lifeboat had been capsized.
Survival time would now be reduced to minutes in the freezing Irish January sea.
The storm was winning and the speed with which the waves began to overpower the vessel now accelerated. The ferry was waging a losing battle against the elements; and both the captain and Walter knew it.
The Donaghadee lifeboat, the Sir Samuel Kelly, set out into the ferocious sea at approximately 1.40 p.m. on the Saturday, and managed to reach the stricken ferry.
Fighting gale force waves and wind, they managed to retrieve only thirty-three of the 165 passengers.
As a former pilot in the First World War, Walter had always preferred flying as a means of travel, rather than going by sea. Whenever he was in the Dakota, flying over to Northern Ireland, he always asked for the front seat, joking that if it crashed then he wanted to die first.
It was bitter irony it wasn’t a plane that was going to kill him, but the sea.
Everything he could possibly do to help had been done; every avenue exhausted. No lifeboats remained. Walter quietly retired to his cabin, to wait – to wait for the sea to deal her final blow.
The wait wasn’t long, but it must have felt like an eternity. The glass in Walter’s cabin porthole would have shattered into a thousand fragments as it succumbed to the relentless pressure of the water.
Walter, my great-grandfather, the captain of the Princess Victoria and 129 other crew and passengers were soon swallowed by the blackness.
Gone.
They were only a few miles from the Ulster coast, almost within sight of Walter and Margaret’s house at Portavo Point.
Standing at the bay window of the drawing room, watching as the coastguard flares lit up the sky, summoning the Donaghadee lifeboat crew to action stations, Margaret and her family could only wait anxiously, and pray.
Their prayers were never answered.
CHAPTER 4
The Donaghadee lifeboat went to sea again at 7.00 a.m. on the Sunday morning, in eerie, post-storm, calm conditions – they found scattered bits of wreckage and took on board the bodies of eleven men, one woman and a child.
There was not one soul found alive, and all the remaining bodies were lost to the sea.
That very same day, Margaret, in shock, performed the grisly task of identifying bodies on the quayside of Donaghadee harbour.
Her beloved’s body was never found.
Margaret never recovered, and within a year, she died of a broken heart.
At a memorial service attended by over a thousand people in the parish church at Bangor, the Bishop of Down said in his address that Walter Smiles died, as he lived: ‘a good, brave, unselfish man who lived up to the command: “Look not every man to his own things, but every man, also, to the good of others.”’
Almost a hundred years earlier, to the day, Samuel Smiles had written the final pages of his book Self-Help. It included this moving tale of heroism as an example for the Victorian Englishman to follow. For the fate of my great-grandfather, Walter, it was poignant in the extreme.
The vessel was steaming along the African coast with 472 men and 166 women and children on board.
The men consisted principally of recruits who had been only a short time in the service.
At two o’clock in the morning, while all were asleep below, the ship struck with violence upon a hidden rock, which penetrated her bottom; and it was at once felt that she would go down.
The roll of the drums called the soldiers to arms on the upper deck, and the men mustered as if on parade.
The word was passed to ‘save the women and children’; and the helpless creatures were brought from below, mostly undressed, and handed silently into the boats.
When they had all left the ship’s side, the commander of the vessel thoughtlessly called out, ‘All those that can swim, jump overboard and make for the boats.’
But Captain Wright, of the 91st Highlanders, said, ‘No! If you do that, the boats with the women will be swamped.’ So the brave men stood motionless. Not a heart quailed; no one flinched from his duty.
‘There was not a murmur, nor a cry amongst them,’ said Captain Wright, a survivor, ‘until the vessel made her final plunge.’
Down went the ship, and down went the heroic band, firing a volley shot of joy as they sank beneath the waves.
Glory and honour to the gentle and the brave!
The examples of such men never die, but, like their memories, they are immortal.
As a young man, Walter undoubtedly would have read and known those words from his grandfather’s book.
Poignant in the extreme.
Indeed, the examples of such men never die, but, like their memories, they are immortal.
CHAPTER 5
Margaret’s daughter, Patsie, my grandmother, was in the prime of her life when the Princess Victoria sank. The media descended on the tragedy with reportage full of heroism and sacrifice.
Somehow the headlines dulled Patsie’s pain. For a while.
In a rush of grief-induced media frenzy, Patsie found herself winning a by-election to take over her father’s Ulster seat in Parliament.
The glamorous, beautiful daughter takes over her heroic father’s political seat. It was a scrip
t made for a film.
But life isn’t celluloid, and the glamour of Westminster would exact a dreadful toll on Northern Ireland’s youngest-ever female MP.
Patsie had married Neville Ford, my grandfather: a gentle giant of a man, and one of seven brothers and sisters.
Neville’s father had been the Dean of York and Headmaster of Harrow School. His brother Richard, a young sporting prodigy, had died suddenly and unexpectedly a day before his sixteenth birthday whilst a pupil at Eton; and one of Neville’s other brothers, Christopher, had been tragically killed in Anzio during the Second World War.
But Neville survived, and he shone.
Voted the best looking man at Oxford, he was blessed with not only good looks, but also a fantastic sporting eye. He played top-level county cricket and was feted in the newspapers as a huge ‘hitter of sixes’, with innings becoming of his six foot three frame. But marrying the love of his life, Patsie, was where his heart lay.
He was as content as any man can hope to be, living with his bride in rural Cheshire. He took up a job with Wiggins Teape, the paper manufacturers, and together he and Patsie began to raise a small family in the countryside.
For Patsie to follow so publicly in her father’s footsteps was a decision that troubled Neville, however. He knew that it would change all their lives drastically. But he consented all the same.
The glamour of Westminster was intoxicating for his young wife, and the Westminster corridors were equally intoxicated by the bright and beautiful Patsie.
Neville waited and watched patiently from their home in Cheshire. But in vain.
It wasn’t long before Patsie became romantically involved with a Member of Parliament. The MP vowed to leave his wife, if Patsie left Neville. It was a clichéd, empty promise. But the tentacles of power had firmly grasped the young Patsie. She chose to leave Neville.
It was a decision that she regretted until her dying day.
Sure enough, the MP never left his wife. Yet by now Patsie had burnt her bridges and life moves ever on.
But the damage, that would affect our family, was done; and for Neville and Patsie’s two young daughters (Sally, my mother, and her sister, Mary-Rose), their world was turning.
For Neville it was beyond heart-breaking.
Patsie was soon wooed by another politician, Nigel Fisher, and this time she married him. But from early on in their marriage, Patsie’s new husband, Nigel, was unfaithful.
Yet she stayed with him and bore the burden, with the flawed conviction that somehow this was God’s punishment to her for leaving Neville, the one man who had ever truly loved her.
Patsie raised Sally and Mary-Rose, and she went on to achieve so much with her life, including founding one of Northern Ireland’s most successful charities: the Women’s Caring Trust, that still today helps communities come together through music, the arts and even climbing. (Climbing has always been in the family blood!)
Granny Patsie was loved by many and had that great strength of character that her father and grandfather had always shown. But somehow that regret from her early life never really left her.
She wrote a very poignant but beautiful letter on life to Lara, my sister, when she was born, that ended like this:
Savour the moments of sheer happiness like a precious jewel – they come unexpectedly and with an intoxicating thrill.
But there will also be moments, of course, when everything is black – perhaps someone you love dearly may hurt or disappoint you and everything may seem too difficult or utterly pointless. But remember, always, that everything passes and nothing stays the same … and every day brings a new beginning, and nothing, however awful, is completely without hope.
Kindness is one of the most important things in life and can mean so much. Try never to hurt those you love. We all make mistakes, and sometimes, terrible ones, but try not to hurt anyone for the sake of your own selfishness.
Try always to think ahead and not backwards, but don’t ever try to block out the past, because that is part of you and has made you what you are. But try, oh try, to learn a little from it.
It wasn’t until the final years of her life, that Neville and Patsie became almost ‘reunited’.
Neville now lived a few hundred yards from the house that I grew up in as a teenager on the Isle of Wight, and Patsie in her old age would spend long summers living with us there as well.
The two of them would take walks together and sit on the bench overlooking the sea. But Neville always struggled to let her in close again, despite her warmth and tenderness to him.
Neville had held fifty years of pain after losing her, and such pain is hard to ignore. As a young man I would often watch her slip her fingers into his giant hand, and it was beautiful to see.
I learnt two very strong lessons from them: the grass isn’t always greener elsewhere, and true love is worth fighting for.
CHAPTER 6
During the first few years of my life, all school holidays were spent at Portavo Point, in Donaghadee, on the Northern Irish coast – the same house where my great-grandfather Walter had lived, and so near to where he ultimately died.
I loved that place.
The wind off the sea and the smell of salt water penetrated every corner of the house. The taps creaked when you turned them and the beds were so old and high that I could only reach into mine by climbing up the bedstead.
I remember the smell of the old Yamaha outboard engine in our ancient wooden boat that my father would carry down to the shore to take us out in on calm days. I remember walks through the woods with bluebells in full bloom. I especially loved hiding and running amongst the trees, getting my father to try and find me.
I remember being pushed by my elder sister, Lara, on a skateboard down the driveway and crashing into the fence; or lying in a bed beside Granny Patsie, both of us ill with measles, quarantined to the garden shed to keep us away from everyone else.
I remember swimming in the cold sea and eating boiled eggs every day for breakfast.
In essence, it was the place where I found my love of the sea and of the wild.
But I didn’t know it at the time.
Conversely, the school term times would be spent in London where my father worked as a politician. (It was a strange, or not so strange, irony that my mother married a future MP, after witnessing the dangerous power of politics first-hand growing up, with Patsie as her mother.)
When my parents married, Dad was working as a wine importer, having left the Royal Marine Commandos where he had served as an officer for three years. He then went on to run a small wine bar in London before finally seeking election as a local councillor and subsequently as a Member of Parliament for Chertsey, just south of London.
More importantly, my father was, above all, a good man: kind, gentle, fun, loyal and loved by many. But, growing up, I remember those times spent in London as quite lonely for me.
Dad was working very hard, and often late into the evenings, and Mum, as his assistant, worked beside him. I struggled, missing just having time together as a family – calm and unhurried.
Looking back, I craved some peaceful time with my parents. And it is probably why I behaved so badly at school.
I remember once biting a boy so hard that I drew blood, and then watching as the teachers rang my father to say they didn’t know what to do with me. My father said he knew what to do with me, though, and came down to the school at once.
With a chair placed in the middle of the gym, and all the children sitting cross-legged on the floor around him, he whacked me until my bum was black and blue.
The next day, I slipped my mother’s hand in a busy London street and ran away, only to be picked up by the police some hours later. I wanted attention, I guess.
My mother was forever having to lock me away in my bedroom for trouble-making, but she would then get concerned that I might run out of oxygen, so had a carpenter make some air-holes in the door.
They say that necessity is the moth
er of all invention, and I soon worked out that, with a bent-over coat hanger, I could undo the latch through the air-holes and escape. It was my first foray into the world of adapting and improvising, and those skills have served me well over the years.
At the same time, I was also developing a love of the physical. Mum would take me every week to a small gymnasium for budding gymnasts, run by the unforgettable Mr Sturgess.
The classes were held in a dusty old double garage behind a block of flats in Westminster.
Mr Sturgess ran the classes with iron, ex-military discipline. We each had ‘spots’ on the floor, denoting where we should stand rigidly to attention, awaiting our next task. And he pushed us hard. It felt like Mr Sturgess had forgotten that we were only aged six – but as kids, we loved it.
It made us feel special.
We would line up in rows beneath a metal bar, some seven feet off the ground, then one by one we would say: ‘Up, please, Mr Sturgess,’ and he would lift us up and leave us hanging, as he continued down the line.
The rules were simple: you were not allowed to ask permission to drop off until the whole row was up and hanging, like dead pheasants in a game larder. And even then you had to request: ‘Down, please, Mr Sturgess.’ If you buckled and dropped off prematurely, you were sent back in shame to your spot.
I found I loved these sessions and took great pride in determining to be the last man hanging. Mum would say that she couldn’t bear to watch as my little skinny body hung there, my face purple and contorted in blind determination to stick it out until the bitter end.