One and a half millions pounds' worth of goods were once thrown into the sea under the commands of Navigating Officer Robert Hichens. It was when the Minnehaha struck the Scilly Rocks, thirty miles from Land's End, some years before the war.

Hichens was sent in charge of 300 men to throw all the cargo overboard, so that the ship could be salved.

The wheels [sic] of the Titanic was in Robert Hichens' hands when she struck the iceberg and went down.

For seven years he has sailed the China Seas and been lucky to escape death at the hands of pirates.

Now he is homeless and penniless, this saltiest of sea dogs, unable to find a job on sea or land. He is fifty-one.

"I have had as full a life as a man could wish," he said to a "Sunday Express" representative, "and have had more than my share of luck, but it all seems to be finished now.

"I started as a boy with the Cornish fishing fleet.

"In the China seas since the war, I have seen the slaughter of pirates, and in one week I have attended the funerals of five officers who have been killed by pirates.

"Now I cannot get a job. I have tramped and tramped through all the docks - London, Liverpool, Hull, Grimsby. Everywhere - but I am too old. My experience is not wanted.