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This is the first draft of a family tree centred on my father, Robert Samuel Smith. He was born in the last days of the 19th century at the end of Queen Victoria's reign. Only a teen-ager, he joined the Royal Marines at age 17 (in 1916) and served on ships mainly in the Eastern Mediterranean off the shores of Albania, Greece, Macedonia, Armenia - all during the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and while the fleet were not allowed to intervene in the bloody massacres happening right in front of it. There were also trips to Palestine, etc and I believe one to the Caribean and Boston. About 1940, he and one machine gun were the protection afforded to one small merchant vessel. He was torpedoed a couple of times, the last time being in the North Atlantic for more than 24 hours. He had one (or both?) big toes shot off and so could not stand to attention. He was pensioned off and subsequently worked as a navvy - a labourer hired by the day - at HM Dockyard in Chatham, Kent, England. Happily married for over 20 years, he became a widower in 1945 when his wife, Winifred "Winnie" died of TB, leaving him to raise - or oversee the activities - of his 8 children (one child, Teddy had predeceased Winnie.) About 1929, his brother, George, emigrated to Australia and there subsequently started a new branch of the family tree - a most prolific branch!
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