Merchant Navy Officer: Joseph Stephen George Wedekind 1924-2001

The life and family of a British merchant navy officer, of German background who joins his first ship at age sixteen in 1941 in London. Spends the war on a merchant ship and then two world trips on tramp steamers before getting married in Brighton, England and emigrating to New Zealand. There he joins the Union Steam Ship Co, goes ashore on the wharfs and builds a hillside house in Wellington. With his wife he transforms his life to become a New Zealander, has a family and becomes a builder, painter, paperhanger. "Home is the sailor, home from the sea"