HERE'S a touching poetic tribute penned to the memory of HMS Spartan, sunk with great loss of life at Anzio on January 29, 1944. It was among the hand-written effects left, when he died, by wartime St Helens survivor Fred Fairclough.

The guns were firing to the end,

Then she, the stricken hull,

The doomed, the beautiful,

Proudly to fate abased,

Sank slowly beneath the waves.

I recall a Christmas of long ago,

Without any holly or mistletoe,

It was Christmas Day 1943,

When we were ordered to put to sea,

To escort some troops of the Eighth Army,

I raised my arm as we passed by,

When spontaneous cheering was their reply,

For many of those Desert Rats,

That Christmas was to be their last,

For they were killed in '44,

Landing on a foreign shore,

For many of my shipmates, too,

For we were sunk in Anzio Bay,

Shortly after that Christmas Day,

And now as I write these lines,

I pray for peace for all mankind.