In February 1945 the U boat activity was slowing down in the Atlantic and it was considered safe to return to the UK. The Shaw Family left Sydney Harbour in The Dominion Monarch, a cruise ship which had been requisitioned for war work as a troop ship. The ship took us to Wellington NZ where we picked up more families and then sailed through The Panama Canal to New York. In Panama Anne’s mother tried to buy bananas for her and her sister but the man on the shore wouldn’t oblige.
The family had a few days in New York and Anne remembers visiting a huge, or so it seemed, shop where her mother bought the sisters each a doll which closed its eyes and cried, a great treat, Anne still has hers.