TWO sisters will today make an emotional journey to say goodbye to their father, whose ship was sunk hours after VE Day was declared 60 years ago.

Thoughts of the trip ahead bring tears to the eyes of Celia Turnbull, 60, and Pamela Harper, 63, whose only memories of their father have been built on fragments of information gathered over the decades.

Pam, who lives in Spennymoor, County Durham, said: "Victory had been declared and people all over Europe were celebrating, but then a U-boat fired at my father's ship and out of 28 men, two died.

"Our father was one of them, and we never got to know him."

At 8.30pm on May 7, 1945, chief engineer George Anderson was in the engine room of the SS Avondale Park as it made its way through the Firth of Forth, at Edinburgh, to deliver kettle cake to Belfast.

There was an atmosphere of jubilation on the ship and, for the first time, the ship's lights were switched on.

The Second World War had come to an end and the crew finally felt safe.

But at 11.30pm, less than an hour before the official surrender and 30 miles from Edinburgh, a German U-boat fired a torpedo at the ship.

Official reports say she sank within two minutes in 25 fathoms of water.

Mr Anderson, who was born in Tudhoe, County Durham, was only 36 when he was killed, and left behind a wife and two daughters.

Today, the ship lies 55 metres beneath the surface of the Firth of Forth, and this morning, the two sisters will look down and try to imagine how their lives could have been so different.

Of the two, it is only Pam who has a vague recollection of her father.

She said: "I remember my father at Celia's christening.

"I must only have been three years old, but I remember a tall man in a uniform. That is all."

For decades, they have tried to find anyone else who was on the ship to piece together what happened.

Celia, who lives in Thornley, east Durham, said strangers and distant relations have helped, but that their mother, who could have provided so much information, could never speak about him.

Celia said: "She gave up, she just had no will to live.

"She never got over losing her husband, even though she had us."

Their mother, Ivy, lived at the Victoria Hotel, in Half Moon Lane, Spennymoor, for nine years after his death, but never once spoke about him, even when confronted by a confused 12-year-old Pam, who one day found a newspaper cutting about her father's death.

Pam said: "It was 1954 and I was looking in a box.

"I found a cutting that said 'VE day wasn't a happy day for everyone', and it told the story of my father, who was killed hours after the announcement.

"My mother said nothing when I asked her."

A few months later, the two sisters decided they wanted to see where their father's body lay and to say few words.

Celia said: "My father never had a grave, but we want to see where his ship sank in honour of VE Day.

"It wasn't a happy day for everyone. We both think how different our lives would have been if we had known him."