FOR whom the bell tolls! Generations of the Arnold family are told how Leading Stoker Walter Arnold survived the loss of the Thetis by his son Derek Arnold, of Bebington.

Mr Arnold, of Old Chester Road, is pictured kneeling down besides the Thetis Bell during the poignant commemorative service at Birkenhead Priory to mark the 60th anniversary of the sinking of the Birkenhead-built submarine.

"On the day of my father's birth, October 28, 1909, he came into the world with a membrane covering his face. The midwife who delivered him removed it, placed it in a wrap and commented anyone born with such a veil will never drown.

"How prophetic her words were to be. My father carried the little wrap with him wherever he went." - passage courtesy of Bebington publisher Dave Roberts and the book Thetis, The Admiralty Regrets, story of the disaster in Liverpool.

Only four men escaped Thetis in which 99 others died. Derek Arnold is the son of the only navy rating who survived. The late Walter Arnold's name is on the memorial high up St Mary's Church Tower overlooking the Cammell Laird shipyard, where Thetis was built. His dramatic escape and aftermath is also told in a new book by Dave Roberts, HMS Thetis, Secrets and Scandal.

Converted for the new archive on 13 March 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.