Gordon went to Washington bearing gifts. I read that one of them was a pen holder made from the timber of HMS Gannet, a sloop of war. What readers will not know is that this scribe spent three years of his formative youth onboard that mighty vessel. This vessel was used for some years as an accomodation ship for the school known as the "Training ship Mercury". The three years of hell I spent there in the early sixties surely entitles me to that pencil case. I want it back.
Slavery British style
