In 1940 Peter Cullen was a boy of fourteen living in Woodford Bridge in Essex. His father was called up and Peter was sent to live with an aunt and uncle near Sudbury. The phoney war had ended and now came a time of almost nightly air raids.
Life was hard, and although he adored his Auntie Daphne he ran away from home. It was a decision taken on impulse. One moment he was an Essex schoolboy; the next he was hitching to Dublin in the cab of a lorry. And before long he was signing on to the crew of the Cork Explorer, bound for Vladivostok.