In this illustrated talk, the daughter of Leonard H Thomas will give an account that illustrates the fortitude and bravery of the men who sailed through ice and fire to further the war effort on the Russian Arctic convoys in 1942. Her father kept a secret notebook from which he later wrote his memoirs and these contained many well-observed details of life onboard his ship, HMS Ulster Queen. He told of the hardships that followed when they endured being at action stations and locked in the engine room, under fire from the skies above and the sea below, and only able to guess at what was happening from the cacophony of sounds they could hear, how the crew suffered from an appalling lack of food, the intense cold, and the stark conditions endured for weeks on end berthed in Archangel in the cold of the approaching Russian winter.
Leona Thomas retired after 40 years teaching in Edinburgh. In 2014 she started transcribing the memoirs of her father, published in the book entitled 'Through Ice and Fire'. Since then she has written and published three novels of her own. An amateur genealogist, animal lover and gardener. She was involved in stitching a group panel for The Great Tapestry of Scotland and completed a solo panel for her father's Arctic Convoy PQ18 as part of the Scottish Diaspora Tapestry. In February 2016 she was commissioned by the Foreign Office to do an embroidery to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the first convoy to Russia in 1941 - 'Operation Dervish' and was invited to Russia where she handed it over in person to the Maritime Museum in Arkhangelsk in August 2016 and was presented to the Princess Royal
Book on the link or by calling Lauriston Castle on 0131 336 2060
Through Ice and Fire: One Man's Memoirs of the Russian Arctic Convoys 1942