An online encounter with my uncle, the gun-running 'Potato' He didn't make it through partly because HMS Hood was patrolling the area to protect British shipping, and ensure nothing happened that could drag Britain into Spain's civil conflict. The Royal Navy sent him back to France, but thanks to his bullish statements to the press, his fame was already assured. Had the Royal Navy known that underneath his potatoes, Uncle Davey was running guns, machinery and whatever else to Spanish Republicans, they might have sent him all the way back to Swansea. Once the blockade crisis had died down, Potato Jones simply sailed to Alicante to deliver his real cargo. His main motive for assisting in the fight against Franco's fascists is the subject of some debate in the family, given he died a wealthy man in 1962, but Potato Jones certainly took some risks, such as shipping Harley Davidson motorcycles to the Republicans, for no personal benefit. HMS Hood crew members recalled a "persistent old cuss" who was "salt of the earth." Until this week, I had only been dimly aware of this tale of intrigue and derring-do on the high seas. But thanks to no deeper research than some on Google Books, newspaper archives and assorted other online sources, I was able to piece together a bit of family history in no time at all. The BBC's increasingly complete online radio archive helped too. But the greatest treasure I discovered was on YouTube and posted only days ago as part of an archive of old comedy records. Uncle Davey's exploits, or at least the potato-humanitarian version of them, apparently became so well-known in 1937 that he warranted a musical tribute from "The Two Leslies," a popular music hall duo. "Out on the rolling sea, as far as I understand, there's a skipper by the good old name of Jones," it begins. Stubborn as he can be but as game as a fighting cock... He won't stand interference and I have heard people tell if anybody tries they get a sailor-man's farewell! Without the web this cultural gem would have surely been lost.