IT could have been the last journey Barry Robson-Cross ever made. More than 50 years ago, he narrowly avoided boarding the troop ship on which his father died in one of the Second World War's worst maritime tragedies.

An article in The Northern Echo earlier this month has brought back memories for the pensioner, from Bishop Middleham, County Durham.

The article was about SS Ceramic: The Untold Story, a new book by Kent author Clare Hardy about the sinking of the British vessel in 1942, which was torpedoed in the Atlantic by a German U-boat with the loss of 655 lives.

Mr Robson-Cross, who is in his early seventies, was a young boy when his family were preparing to join his father, Walter, on the ship.

Walter was a First World War veteran who served in the trenches, but became a dentist in Thornaby, near Stockton, when peace returned to Europe.

He was called up again for the Second World War and, in 1942, was serving with the Royal Engineers when he was ordered to sail to South Africa where he was to become a major.

Mr Robson-Cross said: "At the time, there was talk of my mother, myself, my brother and my sister sailing with my father on the Ceramic.

"In the end, we did not do so because there was a stop placed on the movement of personnel's families. Had that not happened, we could have been on the vessel when she sank.

"A short time later, the family received a telegram saying that my father was missing in action."

Much of the story has only recently emerged. What makes it more shocking was that the U-boat came back to finish the job when the Ceramic, a passenger liner in peacetime, did not sink immediately.

Among the victims were at least three other North-East men. In addition to Ms Hardy's book, there has been a book, Lone Wolf, about Werner Henke, the U-boat captain who sank the Ceramic and who was shot dead escaping from a US prisoner-of-war camp in 1944.

Mr Robson-Cross said: "Much of the information about the Ceramic has only really started to emerge over the past two years or so, and it has been remarkable to find out so much.

"It was weird when I read Lone Wolf because it was about the man who was responsible for my father's death."

Eighteen months ago, helped by his son, Mr Robson-Cross found his father's name at the memorial in the Brookwood military cemetery, in Surrey.

He said: "It really shattered me to see my dad's name up there."