After a hugely successful Warship Week, HMS Primula (K14) was adopted by the people of Petersfield in March 1942, writes Judith Jones.

Aiming for £120,000, the appeal’s final total was in fact £219,484 1s 4d.

The Hants and Sussex News reported that this was “a very remarkable and fine achievement, due to the realisation of the people generally in the area of what is expected of them at this critical time.”

The sum worked out at about £7 10s per head across the town and 13 surrounding rural parishes. This success was recognised by a telegram from the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Warship Week had included a procession on the opening day with representatives of the fighting services, and rousing daily speeches in The Square from serving chief petty officers in the Royal Navy.

Primula was a Flower-class corvette, launched on June 22, 1940, and was the second vessel of that name.

The first was torpedoed in the Mediterranean in 1916.

Flower-class was the name given to a British class of 294 corvettes used during the Second World War, specifically with the Allied navies as anti-submarine escorts.

Lightly armed and with a maximum speed of 16 knots, they were small and relatively cheap to build in large numbers as the threat of war loomed.

Production began in the early months of 1939 to meet the government’s requirement for something that was larger and faster than a trawler but which could be built at small merchant shipyards.

The Smiths Dock Company of Middlesbrough, which was a specialist in the design and building of fishing vessels, suggested developing a ship based on its 700-ton whale catcher Southern Pride.

The Flower-class corvettes’ short length and shallow draft meant that they were uncomfortable and exhausting ships to live in due to the constant rolling and pitching.

Service on board was monotonous and debilitating for long periods, requiring constant vigilance.

For the ordinary ratings living conditions were cramped, stuffy and water-laden.

Lack of storage for perishable foods meant a repetitive diet of corned beef and powdered potato at almost every meal. Most of the crew were young and healthy so the principal health hazard was persistent sea-sickness.

It is easy to see why the gifts and comforts provided by the Petersfield Comforts Fund were so much appreciated by the crew of 90.

Primula had several captains during the war, the last of which was Lieutenant Commander Edwin Noel Wilding RNVR.

Primula (K14) served under the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean during the Second World War.

She was painted in Mediterranean camouflage and was generally engaged in escort duty between Gibraltar and Alexandria, although she also did duty as a food runner to the 8th Army, an Aegean scout, a garbage scow, and ‘any other dirty job’ as required.

After the war she was sold – on July 22, 1946 – and she was eventually scrapped in 1953 in Hong Kong.

The Primula’s ensign was presented to the town by Lt-Cdr Wilding and some of his crew during a visit in July 1945, as a symbol of the relationship between the town and the ship, and it hung in a side chapel at St Peter’s Church for many years.