Earlier this year when we did a feature on 103-year-old Mrs. Writa Johnson, referring to her as the last of the survivors rescued from the ill-fated Furness Withy liner Fort Victoria. While en route from New York to Bermuda it was rammed by another ship on the high seas and sank in December 1929.

Mrs. Johnson and her American husband were on their honeymoon trip to Bermuda.

Prominent Hamilton businessman and internationally renowned yachtsman Warren Brown, Jr., politely called our editor to say he too was a survivor and very much alive. He explained his mother was the deck of Fort Victoria when the drama unfolded. She was holding him in her arms when the Captain ordered 269 other passengers plus crew to abandon their sinking ship.

His rescue and photograph made the front page of a special extra Sunday special edition of the New York Daily News. It told of how he was taken from his mother's arms tossed over the side of the sinking liner and was caught by a member of the crew in a lifeboat below. They were among the first to be returned to New York where he had been born somewhat prematurely three months earlier, delaying her return to her family in Hamilton.

One may ask: "What does all of that have to do with anything?" It's just one of those memorable coincidences that surface now and again.

Two week ago in our piece headlined 'Bermuda and Britain's Windrush legacy', we related how Bermuda had been the troop ship's last port of call before it arrived in Tilsbury, England on June 22, 1948 with 500 black men, including eight Bermudians. We noted how that motley group, most of whom were Jamaicans, played an important part in the history of modern multiculturalism in Britain. We highlighted particularly that those eight Bermudians were stowaways.

That feature elicited two calls, one from 91-year-old former Whitney Institute teacher Mrs. Margaret Isabel Mair Cooper of 'Oyster Point', Southampton near the landmark Waterlot Inn; and the other from social activist and lively radio talk show contributor Leroy Riley. He jocularly recalled how at the last minute he and three other young adventurers at the time narrowly escaped being among that stowaway group.

Mrs. Cooper, a longstanding friend of the Zuill family, graciously inquired of editor Bill Zuill: "What's all this stuff about the Windrush?"

It just happened she was one of a number of other Bermudians on the Windrush. She was accompanied by her ten-month-old baby boy David, and moreover she was pregnant with her daughter Dorothy, who is now Mrs. Billings, a retired educator. David and his elder brother John are prominent lawyers.

"How was that trip on the Windrush?" was the first question we asked Mrs. Cooper in a delightful interview with her over a cup of strong tea.

She summed it up in one word: "Awful." Easily drawing on her powerful memory, she went on to explain why, displaying along the way a keen wit and sense of humour.

Mrs. Cooper was sent to Bermuda in 1941 to be a censorette, part of the elite bilingual British Imperial Censorship Group stationed at the Princess and Bermudiana Hotels in Hamilton. They censored mail from the US bound for Europe that was diverted to Bermuda for secrets helpful to the Allied war effort.

Obviously a remarkable young woman for the post-World War One age and era in which she was born and raised in Aberdeen, Scotland. She graduated from Edinburgh University with an MA degree, having majored in higher Latin, higher German, French and English History.

By age 20, she was employed as an au pair girl with a family in France; and in order to help perfect her German her next job was in Germany. At that time the country was seething with Nazism. Everything was 'Heil Hitler' and a salute where otherwise in England and Bermuda one would say 'Good Day' or 'Hello'. She attended events in the German Olympic Stadium and personally saw Hitler's Deputy, Hermann Goering, and the propagandist Joseph Goebbels, who seemed to thrill the German masses.

Margaret had spent seven years in Bermuda, married a banker, Dudley Gray Cooper, when in 1948 it was deemed she should return to Scotland to see her dying father. He was a widely travelled minister and a Moderator in the Scottish Presbyterian Church.

Her memories of boarding the Windrush off Dockyard are absolutely clear, she said.

She had been seen off by her husband. The boat actually set sail but the next day had to return to Hamilton because of engine trouble. It was not a good start, but sufficiently long enough for her to discern that the food was dreadful. She feared for the effect of the milk on her child. Her cabin had no portholes; there was only a grate for ventilation.

So, the next day in Hamilton she seized the opportunity to go to the Phoenix Drug Store to get baby food. The first person she met there was her surprised husband who himself just needed to go to the drug store.

She knew first hand of the detestable segregation and discrimination shown the Jamaicans, most of whom were war veterans returning to the UK with others seeking work. One of the vets had a white wife; they were not permitted eat together and the wife was required to dine at Margaret's table.

Eventually the Windrush set sail again and took 11 awful days before arriving at Tilsbury. She was totally unaware of the Bermudian stowaways. It took a long time before she could disembark because of problems officials had finding accommodation for the Jamaican emigrants. Many ended up sleeping in air raid shelters.

As far as the Coopers' luggage was concerned, all was well, except that several cartons of cigarette they were taking for friends had been stolen.

During their long wait she could see her brother on the dockside anxiously waiting to take her to Aberdeen. She had arrived June 22. He father died in August. Margaret, with son David, returned to Bermuda by air, bringing her widowed mother. They arrived in September after a short stay in New York and landed in time to give birth to her daughter Dorothy weeks later.

Her mother Elsie Mair adjusted well in Bermuda. Often she would ask her husband how he was getting along with his mother-in-law. He would say, fine, except for the fact she kept using his beer steins as flower pots.

As she is such a proud Scot, we could not resist asking Mrs. Cooper if she knew Alma (Champ) Hunt, the Bermudian cricket international icon who made cricket come alive in Aberdeenshire during the 1930s and '40s. Yes, she replied; he was a gentleman and a friend of the family.

Dorothy said her mother keeps a keen interest in local and international politics, sport and current community affairs. The first thing she expects to have waiting for her when she rises daily is the morning newspaper.

Incidentally, she was one of the personalities with a snippet in Lucinda Spurling's epic movie "The Lion and the Mouse" narrated by Michael Douglas; and also referred to by Sir William Stephenson in his the book "Intrepid" because of one of the major secrets the censorettes had brought to light.

Mrs. Cooper is believed to be one of the few of the censorettes, if not the last, still alive in Bermuda.