THE DAILY MAIL

offers readers a unique opportunity to re-establish contact with long-lost relatives and friends. Each week, MONICA PORTER features the story of someone trying to find a missing loved one, as well as a tale of people reunited. This column is produced in conjunction with the voluntary tracing service, Searching For A Memory, run by Gill and John Whitley. BOB CHALMERS writes: ‘Back in the Sixties, Portsmouth Dockyard was the city’s largest employer.

‘Three times a year, hundreds of youngsters who had left school at 15 started there as apprentice fitters, turners, electricians and shipwrights.

‘I was in the September 1964 entry, a shipwright apprentice at Flathouse Apprentice Training Centre with 30 others.

‘In the second year of training, we were given the job of building the dockyard’s 1965 entry for the Southsea Carnival, which was Old Mother Hubbard’s Shoe (pictured above).

‘My photo shows most of the apprentices in my entry, along with a few from other trades who had a hand in building the float.

‘I’m in contact with John Bramble, Geoff Hillier and John Summerfield, but would like to find the rest and have a big reunion.

‘The names I remember from those days are Bob Piper, Barry Pickering, Kelvin Sims, Chris Wyatt, Tony Davies, John Copper, Terry O’Hagan, Stuart Lukey, Ed Salvage, Ian Privet, Mick Tucker and John Miller.’