IT was 9.20pm on Thursday, August 30, 1934 at London Euston as ‘Royal Scot’ No. 6152 The King’s Dragoon Guardsman coasted into the station with the ‘Midday Scot’. Seventeen-year-old Michael Cobb observed its arrival, blissfully unaware of what fate had in store for him – awaiting evacuation from Dunkirk six summers hence and four years later his ship being torpedoed, or that he would then rise to the rank of colonel in an illustrious military career.