William Frank POVEY (aka Bill) [1931-1961]

This is quite a long story but a rather strange one. My father, William Frank Povey (known to his friends as Bill and to my mother as Will) embarked on a career as a merchant seaman at the age of 16, serving with several ships sailing to, notably, Buenos Airies. I believe he met my mother Valerie Nash at a party held in Maida Vale, London, by the Labour MP Konni Zilliacus. At the time my mother was sharing a flat with Zilliacus' stepdaughter Dawn. He and my mother were marries on 11 June 1955 and from the certificate were apparently living together at 49 Gloucester Terrace, London. My mother recalled moving around the UK to be with my father and certainly he was on board the San Felix as 2nd mate 2 Sept. 1955 - 4 Dec. 1955 sailing out of Birkenhead.

The first record. from my father's Continuous Record of Discharge, of him being in Hong Kong is as 2nd mate on the Indo-China ship Hew Sang, on two consecutive tours 6 Feb. 1956 - 29 Oct. 1956. My mother's passport suggests that she arrived in HK on 25 May 1956. My father remained on Hew Sang for two further tours, with a period of leave presumably for study for his Master's certificate which was awarded in HK on 25 Feb. 1957. Subsequently my father served on Lok Sang, Hop Sang, Eastern Maid (1st Mate) and Eastern Queen (Chief Officer) 13 Apr. - 11 June 1958. By then I had been born on 5 Jan. 1958 at Kowloon Hospital. 

That appears to have been my father's last post at sea as he then joined the Marine Department as Marine Officer on 12 Dec. 1958, a post confirmed by his HK identity card on 7 Jan. 1959. My mother was very tight-lipped about what happened next, but from what little she let slip I gather my father was not happy with this change of career (doubtless at my mother's insistence) and I can only assume relations turned sour.

On 1 Apr. 1959 a transit visa for "holder and child" was stamped in my mother's passport at Katunayaka, Ceylon. We then went back to the UK via Paris.

What happened next is the hardest to understand. It seems that payments to ny mother ceased prior to 1962. That is when she started to write letters and try to find out what had happened to my father. Her first letter to the Marine Dept. got the response that "as far as is known" my father had left HK on the privately owned yacht "Sayonara" in mid-1959. "Rumour has it that he is employed by the Public Works Dept. in Borneo". This turns out not to have been the case. "Sayonara" did though arrive in Manila 29 Nov. 1959 under the command of a Capt. G. Creamer. As the correspondence states "as it is only a yacht there is no formal crew list".

A letter from my mother to the Foreign Office in London contains additional information "apparently" from an officialsource which states that my father had been gun-running to the Indonesian rebels with an American called Kramer. They were discovered in Celebed and fled into the jungle. Kramer made it out and said that my father had died. Kramer was deported to the USA. In the same letter my mother days that my father was sought after by the Chartered Bank in Tawau, though this must have been within the  last 9 months as my father was known to have frequented places in Manila.

After more correspondence a letter from the Foreign Office dated 18 July 1962 states that Captain G. Creamer had been in touch and confirmed that my father had died in Celebes and that his personal effects were handed to the District Commissioner, N. Borneo.

These personal effects include my father's wedding ring (which I wear next to my mother's), his silver cigarette case and several copies of a letter from Muhammud nur Rasjid stating the circumstances of my father's death on 4 Dec. 1961 in the Sampaga valley 10 kn inland from Bao village. This is now Central Sulawesi. 

If anyone has information about these strange events. please let me know.

very best to all

Deborah