Ship's captain Archibald Dickson's civil war heroics honoured

A Cardiff ship captain who risked his own life to save more than 2,500 Republican refugees from the Spanish civil war is being commemorated in his home town 78 years later.

Archibald Dickson sailed the SS Stanbrook coal ship through a U-boat blockade of Alicante, the last ship to leave the Spanish port city before it fell in 1937.

Capt Dickson took the refugees to north Africa where they were initially refused entry, but eventually the authorities allowed the passengers to leave.

The captain was killed along with his crew when the Stanbrook was torpedoed by a U-boat six months later.

Relatives of the rescued refugees attended the unveiling of a plaque to Capt Dickson at Cardiff's Mansion House.

Stephen Fairclough reports.