John Philip Cuming
My thanks for John's son David for providing the following information and photos:
He was born in March 1927 and hit the age of 18 in 1945. By the Spring of 1945 I believe the war in Europe was to all intents and purposes ending. Regardless my dad, John Philip Cuming was called up for service and ended up in the Royal Navy as an ABS. From conversations with my Dad as well as my Mum it appears that he attended University College, Cardiff for initial training perhaps as preliminary officer training as the rumour that evolved was that they were being trained to command landing craft for a land assault on Japan
Regardless, he ended up serving on HMS Gambia and from what I can piece together he appears to have been part of the 1946-48 contingent. I have attached some photographic materials that remain in my possession. One is the crew photo that I noticed all ready exists as well as his time at Cardiff. It looks like "freshman" and the final photo "less freshmen". I also have an original HMS Gambia Christmas menu. I hope this may be of some interest and fill in a gap or two on the crew. I am continuing through some other materials as I believe there is a newspaper cutting from the local Bristol newspaper highlighting serving local Bristol "lads".
After service my Dad went into teaching after training in Cheltenham and then on to positions in Birmingham, Bishops Cleeve (Gloucestershire) and finally Wigmore (Herefordshire). John passed away in 1991 at the age of 64.
Training at Cardiff
John is 2nd row from the top, 5th from the left in the above photo.
Training at Cardiff
John is in the middle row on the right in the above photo.
HMS Gambia crew. John is next to two officers on the right of the photo where the mountains meet the sky.
A little bit of family history I was able to find about John was that his parents were Ernest Frederick Cuming and Gertrude Amelia Cuming (born Belcher). Ernest was born in 1902, in Cardiff, Glamorganshire, Wales, while Gertrude was born on November 18 1902, in Bristol (my home city), England. John had 2 brothers, one named David George Cuming. John was married in 1949, when he was 22 and had two children.