A disaster waiting to happen!
Today's blog is about a disaster that occurred almost 105 years ago in a faraway place that left a great impact on the world at the time and a local family greatly. RICHARD LIONEL PICKERING Richard was born in Newtown in March 1885, the third of six children of James Evers Pickering and Rosa Ellen (nee Sutton). Not much is known about Richard but what is available is that during WW1 he was a married man living in Liverpool England and in 1917 was an officer on board the Royal navy ship performing merchant duties, the HMS Curaca. In December of that year, he was in the wrong place at the worst possible time. Halifax during WW1 was (and still is) the primary port on the east coast of Canada in the province of Nova Scotia. It was an ice-free port and dock, and its waters did not freeze even during the harshest of Canadian winters making it an ideal port in the North Atlantic for year-round operations. By 1917 it had become a key base for Atlantic convoys. The population grew...