BOOK REVIEW: THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL: The Mediterranean Sea isn’t tidal, and back in the 1950s and 1960s, many of this great sea’s ports were little more than natural harbours. It was usual for visiting crew members to cool off by taking a swim.

In fact, such was the humidity and heat of the Eastern Mediterranean at the height of summer that taking a cooling off swim was often a necessity rather than self-indulgence.

My neat fatal mistake, which on several occasions suggested my life expectancy was to be reached before I blew my twenty candles out, was to take a dip in Beirut’s busy harbour.

Fooling about and not paying attention in the busy harbour far from our moored vessel, I realised too late that a harbour tug with a large floating crane in tow was bearing down upon me.

RIGHT. Mike Walsh was 16 years old in New York

Doomsday beckoned: It was too late to swim from its path. I had seconds to ponder my mortal end for the prows of the harbour tug were now perilously close.

If I were to be literally run down by the vessel, the likelihood was that the tug’s propellers would turn my body into mincemeat in seconds.

If I were to miss such a bloody end, then I would be drawn under the barge in tow. This massive vessel would take several minutes to pass over me.

There could be no possibility of my missing one of two excruciating deaths. If the tug’s propellers didn’t turn me into mincemeat, my drowned corpse would eventually float to the surface after the floating crane had passed over me.

Even if the tug stopped, the momentum of the barge would merely spare me the chop from the stilled propellers.

Desperate and frightened, my eye caught sight of a Lebanese crewman poised on the foredeck of the harbour vessel. Having spotted my plight, the tug’s crewman had rushed to the vessel’s prow.

Stretching himself out on the tug’s deck, he pushed as much of his body as he could over the tug’s side.

Then, as the vessel fell upon me, the crew member’s hand clutched at mine, and both seamen hung on for dear life.

Spluttering in the tug’s bow wave, we held grimly on to each other, but it seemed hopeless. Only superhuman strength can haul a waterlogged, drowning seaman onto the foredeck of a moving tug boat.

Then, with a combination of strength and willpower, the heroic Lebanese seaman pulled me aboard the tug’s bow. Half an hour later, I was safely delivered to the port’s quay.

I know that day God was watching, that God, his and mine, worked together to rescue again a foolish young sailor who never seemed to learn.

NOTE: THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL Michael Walsh: One of 70 + real-life true stories of a British seaman who travelled to, visited, lived in and worked in over 60 countries of the world.  You can and should share this story on social media: TELL US WHAT YOU THINK

THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL, ex-Liverpool seaman Michael Walsh, Bestseller: 70 stories and over 100 pictures. A first-hand account of the British ships, seafarers, adventures and misadventures (1955 – 1975). A tribute to the ships and seamen of the then-largest merchant marine in history. CLICK PIC FOR BOOK DETAILS.  https://www.lulu.com/shop/michael-walsh-and-nadiya-burlikova/the-leaving-of-liverpool/paperback/product-v89mgrp.html?q=&page=1&pageSize=4