This is a photograph album with cord binding. The album contains 16 leaves and 35 photographs loosed affixed, 2 loose photographs, 5 extra loose leaves from another album showing wartime scenes (38 photographs), commemorative material, ephemera, menus etc, and 2 loose magazines. There is some captioning.

The album features HMS Amethyst (1943) and events following her escape from the Yangtsze, 31 July 1949.

HMS Amethyst was a sloop launched in 1943. She took part in the sinking of U 482 on 16th January 1945 and U 1276 20th February 1945 and continued to undertake convoy work in the Western Approaches until the end of the war. After the war she was re-designated a frigate and in 1946 was based in Hong Kong. In 1949 she was sent up the Yangtse to act as a guardship for the British Embassy at Nanking.On 20th April was fired on by advancing Chinese communist troops, remaining trapped in China until 30th July 1949 despite the efforts of HMS Consort, HMS London, HMS Black Swan and a Sunderland flying boat to come to her aid. About 59 ratings were evacuated from the ship including presumably Clarkson – 60 men remained on board for 3 months.

The album relates to the career of Yeoman of Signals Lawrence Hooley Clarkson (1922-1979) who served on Amethyst and contains photographs of the ship’s commander Lieutenant-Commander Kerans and the crew after their return to England and the many receptions that were held in their honour.. Also included are menu cards of lunches, newspaper cuttings and a programme featuring women at the London Casino. The 5 loose leaves contain photographs dating from the 1940’s.

A letter in the album from The Cherrytree Orphanage shows Clarkson was brought up there. He later went on to become a senior lecturer at a technical college in Kingsley in Cheshire dying of a heart attack in 1979.