Son's labour of love creates convoy ship

He was an engineer between June 1943 and January 1947 with most of his time spent onboard HMS Honeysuckle.

The corvette of the flower class was part of the Arctic convoys, which sailed to and from Russia during World War Two to supply fuel, food and munitions.

More than 3,000 seamen died in freezing waters as they fought off German blockades.

But it was only after a chance meeting at work with his long-lost uncle, Bob, that maintenance man Mark discovered the true extent of his father's exploits.

The 51-year-old said: "Bob was researching the family tree and so we gave him a black box of my dad's which we had kept underneath the stairs for years but never opened. He rang up later and said it was documents, memorabilia and photos all about dad in World War Two and it turned out that he'd actually done a lot more than anybody ever knew."

Mr Davies, of Meole Brace, who lives in Chatford Drive, delved deeper into Coleham-born Lenny's history and learned that he had served on five separate Russian convoys, despite the Navy only allowing men to serve on three as conditions often saw temperatures on board plummet to minus 20 degrees.

Lenny, who died in 2001 aged 75, was known in Shrewsbury as 'the pigeon flyer' due to his love of breeding pigeons.

He signed up for the Navy as a 17-year-old and amassed an impressive nine service medals during his military career, including the Atlantic Star, two 1939-45 Star medals and three Russian Convoy medals.

Mark, who works part-time at Budgen Motors on Featherbed Lane, said: "Now and again he used to tell a bit of a story but largely servicemen didn't talk about their experiences and dad was the same.

"When I was 14 I was sat watching a naval movie called The Cruel Sea and my mum came in and said to turn it off immediately. My dad had been sitting in the corner – he wasn't crying but was visibly upset. I don't think he ever got over his experiences out there."

Mark and Bob began planning a trip to Loch Ewe in Scotland this May for the WWII & Arctic Convoy Week which will see veterans reuniting from all over the UK.

And Mark, who describes himself as a 'novice with a paintbrush in his hand', came up with an ambitious idea to mark the occasion and leave a legacy to Lenny and his 91 crew members at their base.

He started to painstakingly glue together 1,214 plastic pieces from a £100 kit to create a 2ft model of HMS Honeysuckle, the ship on which his father served.

HMS Honeysuckle was built by Ferguson Shipbuilders in Glasgow, launched on April 22, 1940 and commissioned on September 14 that year.

The 205-foot vessel weighed about 1,100 tonnes and was in service for a decade before it was scrapped.

Records show that the ship came under fire from the air on numerous occasions, and was also targeted by a U-boat.

On 20 September 1941 she picked up 58 survivors from British merchant ship Empire Burton, which was torpedoed by a U-boat east of Cape Farewell, Greenland, and58 survivors from the British tanker TJ Williams.

On July 4, 1943, HMS Honeysuckle helped pick up 461 survivors of the British passenger ship City of Venice, torpedoed and sunk off Cape Tenez, Algeria.

Mark's model of the ship has taken four months of meticulous work, and is covered in three layers of paint, wax for the ice, silicone waves and charcoal on the hull to make it look distressed.

In May it will be donated to the Russian Arctic Convoy Museum, along with notes detailing Lenny's exploits.

"We think dad's captain of the HMS Honeysuckle is still alive and will be at this reunion so it could get quite emotional and I guess this project was my way of saying how proud I was to be his son," he said.

Anybody who remembers Lenny and would like to get in touch with Mark can call him on 07779 777851.