Obituaries
Temple, John Christopher
John Christopher Temple 1940 - 2007
Merseyside and the Liverpool Pilots have lost a true seafarer in retired Liverpool Pilot, John Christopher Temple, who died on 22nd January 2007, after six months of a dreadful illness, which he bore with great dignity. Read the rest of this entry »
Sidgwick, Len
LEN SIDGWICK 31.05.1927 - 20.02.2007
Len Sidgwick was born in Middlesbrough in 1927. From an early age he had an interest in the sea, probably inherited from a Master Mariner Grandfather. Read the rest of this entry »
Spall, Jeffrey
Jeffrey Spall
14 June 1933 - 3 March 2006
Born in
Jeff’s spare time was very much reflected in his love for the “Sea”. Family holidays were of the nautical theme, having boats on the
He was a member of the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service, serving 18 years and was awarded the Good Conduct and Long Service Medal. His most memorable exercise was at the Spithead Fleet Review for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 where he was Skipper on the RNXS Minesweeper Thakham.
During his retirement he became an active member and President of the Harwich & Dovercourt Sailing Club, where he moored his boat Dolphin. He moved on to purchase a Fisher Catamaran on which he spent many happy hours.
Moving on to the tranquillity of the Inland
Waterways of
enjoyed much fun on their narrow boat,
Millpond.
However, Jeff always had a second boat in ‘dry-dock’ – in the garage at home – just in case there should ever be a flood in town!
When not at sea, he served the Harwich and Dovercourt community in numerous organisations. A member of the Harwich Town Council for 21 years and representing the Council at various Committees – Jeff was very honoured to have been elected Mayor of Harwich in 1978 and 1979, with the support of Margaret, always at his side as Mayoress. These were memorable and hectic days, juggling work, family life and service to the community. Both their commitment and hard work was acknowledged when Jeff and Margaret were invited to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace
Ten years were served as a member of Tendring District Council and serving on five sub-Committees, he was Chairman of the Housing Committee for seven years. Jeff also took an interest in our younger generation, as President to Parkeston Scout Group and founding Trustee to the Harwich Free-School Exhibition Foundation. Only recently he resigned as School Governor to St Josephs Roman Catholic Primary School having served for over twenty years.
Up until his illness Jeff was an active member of the Conservative Association, Tendring Sports Council Committee, The Harwich Society and Royal British Legion. Very close to his heart, was the Merchant Navy Association Harwich Branch of which he was the President and Treasurer. He would always take pride in marching at ceremonial Parades and had great delight in participating in the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Parade in
A committed Christian throughout his life he regularly worshipped at St Nicholas Church, Harwich. He fulfilled many roles within the Church and served as Church Warden. He represented the Church as a Trustee for the Kings Church Lands Charity, Chairman of Wimbourne House, and founding member of the Shaftsbury Society North District Committee. In the Christmas of 1980 Jeff had the privilege of representing the Vicar of Harwich and travelled by helicopter to deliver Christmas gifts to the Lightship Crew’s surrounding
His wife Margaret and his Son Tony, Daughter Alex and their respective partners and offspring, will sorely miss Jeff His boundless energy and determination, despite his failing health at times, leaves us all reeling in his wake wondering what we have achieved in comparison.
Mike Richardson
Retired
Harwich Haven Authority
Venn, Alfred William
Alfred William Venn
My father died just six weeks short of his one hundredth birthday. He was the last known survivor of the Bristol Channel Sailing Pilots.
View the original illustrated pdf magazine article (page 8):
pilotmag.co.uk/userfiles/Pilotmag%20286%20(Jul%2006).pdf
At the height of the industrial revolution, the new coal ports of South Wales became boom towns – the Silicon Valleys – of their day. Great wealth was created and commerce from Swansea to Newport, and good Welsh coal was shipped to the four corners of the world to fuel the new era. Even the great port of Bristol, once the second city in England, was overtaken by the convergence of rail, canal and the inevitable melding of coal, steel, iron and the mighty machines it brought forth. Central to the sea-going operation were the one hundred and fifty or so pilots long heralded as master of their calling. The Bristol Channel is one of the most difficult bodies of waters in the world to navigate, with violent seas, the second most powerful tides and attendant currents, and endless changing mud and sandbanks. To qualify for admittance to the ranks of pilotage took half a lifetime, and the boats matched the same degrees of excellence to which the men aspired.
Of these craft much as been written, indeed whole books have been devoted. In essence – they were 40 to 50 feet overall, beam 10 to 14 feet and carried a draft of 7 to 10 feet. Ballasted with concrete between deck and sometimes movable pig-iron bars. They had a number of innovative features including a retractable boom, and roller-reeling called “Appledore”. The decks were clear of skylight or other obstruction which might impair the handling of gear or the boarding punt. Daylight below was provided by glass prisms fitted flush to the deck. These boats were considered the most advanced fore-and-aft craft of the period and even today they are held as the finest weathers by yachtsmen who see the full length keel an essential feature in seaworthiness and ease of handling. In spite of the fact that they were called, and rigged, as cutters, they were known as “skiffs” by the pilots. The all important dinghies that dropped and picked up the pilots, rejoiced in the somewhat frivolous name of “Punts”. Although the Bristol boats started the name of “skiffs,” the Welsh boats, at least for a time also used the term “Yawls” even though it was usually only Swansea who opted for two masts. As they would now say, “go figure!” It was into this world that my father was born in December of 1906. He was the eldest son of his namesake – Pilot Alfred W. Venn of Newport, his skiff was the Dorothia named after his eldest daughter. In those days piloting was much a family business, and in spite of fierce competition once at sea, there was a good deal of socializing and even intermarriage between piloting clans. My father’s youngest sister, Joan, married into one of the most famous pilot families – the Rays of Bristol, then Wales. One of the early Rays assisted the explorer John Cabot as he left to explore the new world in 1497. Since that time, many generations of Rays had distinguished themselves in the service. Born at the end of the Edwardian age, his early memories threw a light on that era. He remembers riding in a hansom cab in London, seeing American “doughboys” in WWI in their cowboy campaign hats, and the memorable day he was taken, mid week, to chapel to a memorial service for “a liner that hit an iceberg mid-Atlantic, and the souls of the poor crew and passengers who drowned.”
When he became a teenager, he was taken to a marine outfitters, bought a pair of seaboots, oilskins and a southwester, and signed articles as an apprentice with his father. On the pilot boat there were usually three crew, the master, the pilot himself (sometimes called “Boss” by the crew to his face or “the Old Man” at other times.) The man-the-boat, a person of infinite talents and a jack-of-all trades. Lastly the apprentice, usually called “Boy,” or sometimes stronger expressions at a time that the sensitivity of the young was not given much account. He was, like all who find themselves beholden to others for their advancement and instruction, the general dogsbody, with multiple duties from hauling casks of water to fill the 60 gallon tanks, to repairing or even making sails, cooking a hearty meal on the iron stove, and taking a turn at the tiller. But tiring and tedious as these duties may have been, there was one in particular that tested his skill and courage. That was the dropping or picking up his pilot using the punt. About ten feet long, four and a half a full midship section, the punt was reported to be very light and a splendid sea boat. The punt was always sculled with a single ten foot oar, and she was stored in her chocks, right way up, on the port side. When it was “out punt” it was manhandled over the side. The Bristol boats had a bulwark that could be removed for this purpose. The actual process of bringing it alongside the lee of the larger vessel was, as always, very demanding on the seamanship of the apprentice, or whoever was doing the skulling, and at night, or with any sort of sea running, it could be a dangerous and skillful venture. My father said that even though cork lifejackets had to be available it was considered “sissy” to be seen wearing one. This pride cost a number of lives.
As I mentioned, competition was fierce! There were three types of Bristol Channel sailing pilots – there were the so-called “Cinchers”, who seemed to be a forerunner of dock pilots and who worked around the river mouth, and served the deep-loaded ships that went to the various wharves in the river. Secondly, there were the most amusingly called “Crack of Dawn Boys” from mainly Barry. They set sail at dawn for a chance at a ship slipping through the net and missed by the last class of pilots – the so-called “Westermen,” These were considered the cream of the crop since they went after the bigger ships, and might end up in Liverpool or Belfast, or even Dungeness in their relentless quest for work.
The aim of this game was to be the furthest west of your rivals in order to win
the right of getting the job. Sometimes this became a battle of wits; sailing without navigation lights, rowing the skiff with big sweeps in a flat calm night. Anything that got you to be the most westerly boat! My grandfather had a friend who was a ship’s butcher, and he got many a tip-off of what ships were due and when. Of course, being an apprentice was not without its fun either. One game the lads invented was “Mid-Channel Football”. There was a sand bar that only surfaced at low tide for an hour or so. They would row out, set up the pitch, and play until the water reached their ankles at which point the match would be concluded the referee’s whistle and the pitch would return to the bottom of the Channel! The pilot skiffs were moored in what is, even today called “Pilots Pill”. A “Pill” being the local name for a tidal creek. With a 40 foot tide at low water the boats would sit in the mud on their “legs,” during which time the apprentices did what my father described as “a fair bit of skylarking”. After serving his five years there came the required deep sea time. In those days a “ticket” was not required as a qualification, so my father shipped out “before the mast”, but was rated as a quartermaster, so learned ship handling on an intensive basis. During the next few years he traveled to Australia, America, India and in particular, the far east. When he finished his obligation the depression began to set in. Jobs in general were few and far between and since piloting was a matter of waiting to fill “dead men’s shoes”, he faced years of waiting until his chance came. My grandfather suggested he work as a boatman on the River Usk at Newport which he did, thus becoming more familiar with the enormous tides and currents which served him well when many years later he was responsible for the safe passage of ocean-going ships in that area. In 1933 he married Edna Barrett, whose maternal grandfather was Pilot Will Evans. They were married for 54 years during
which time my mother was never in good health. She had one of the first open heart
surgeries in the country. My father was devoted to her, and performed many household
tasks without complaint. With a child on the way, he got a job as a rigger, and was
quickly promoted to supervisor at Newport Docks. When WWII arrived, he was very disappointed to find himself too old to serve. He had hoped to help man one of the air/sea rescue launches which were run by the RAF. So, in order to “do his bit”, he volunteered for the Royal Observer Corps. It is important to recall that personal telephones were almost unknown and therefore to report to the fire brigade after an air raid, the solution was to station three observers on high building and through a system of “triangulation” advise authorities as to the location of fires. He spent many hours upon the famed Transporter Bridge and St. Woloos Church tower but by 3am, the Germans would have beat it back to France before daylight, and he could go home. As he had Special Constable status, he had the benefit of a lift home in a police car. My mother used to worry what the neighbours would think about him arriving home in this form of conveyance in the wee small hours!
Father also did some work with the tugs. On one memorable trip they towed a very strange concrete craft with a well set-up cabin below. At first it was thought to be a floating crane platform, but when they towed it up river they found dozens of such platforms. They were, of course, part of the Mulberry Harbour. During all this time, the pilotage in the Bristol Channel underwent a cataclysmic change that would alter their lives forever. This is a long, sad and complicated story that happened over a few years. In today’s terms, its description would include such catch phrases as “bottom-line”, “outsourcing”, “in-house” and “market forces”. Briefly, what happened was that at the end of the First World War, a couple of major steamship companies decided to contract with individual pilots. This destroyed a well-versed system of free lance operation that had been in place for hundreds of years. Violence erupted and one of the “chosen” pilots was tarred and feathered by the angry wives of the affected men. There seemed to be only one solution – amalgamation. This had been tried years before but had come to no avail. Now, however, there as added impetus of financial discipline plus the introduction of steam craft, and the possibility of the fledgling radio to simplify the task of a joint venture. One pilot, in listing the pros and cons, simply stated as his own con – “I will lose my independence.” Even down the years I was aware of this debate, and recall my father, who had a liberal disposition, making the case for amalgamation against those of a more perhaps romantic and nostalgic out look of the past.
So it was my father who was an apprentice in the two eras, from sail to steam. (It might be of some interest that my own son became an engineer on a US Navy nuclear submarine, so our family went from Scottish flax sail cloth to nucleur fission in three generations!) When the Bristol Channel pilots amalgamated, overnight a fleet of these splendid skiffs became redundant, discerning yachtsmen snapped up many but sadly many were left as rotting hulks in creeks and on mud banks. In 1952 my father finally realised his ambition! At 46 years old he was called to take the examination before the Pilotage Board. I was in school at the time, but recall my grandfather and him pouring over charts on the kitchen table as they sailed invisible ships in an endless variety of states of tides by the quickest and safest route. Passing his exams, he obtained his license that gave him the right to pilot from Lundy to Caerleon Bridge. By now the Newport cutter was stationed at Barry Roads, and in spite of the loss of freedom, he was compensated by a warm bedroom, a full time cook and a fast vessel to whisk him to his charges. He used to say that the Bristol Channel has a nice muddy bottom, so it avoided a problem of never going aground. However, he had one nightmare, and that was running aground in the river with the ship’s bow on one bank and the stern on the opposite, then, with a 40 foot tide the ship unsupported would “break her back”. It never happened.
“About the shipwreck,” he would say, and then recount the night that the cutter in a violent storm went on the rocks at Barry. In the dark, the crew jumped aboard the life boat and hauled away out to sea to relative safety. My father coming on deck on the port side looked through the rain and darkness and saw below him a rock, so he slid over the side. Finding a sort of pathway, my father made his way up to what seemed to be a lighted building. It turned out to be the local coastguard station, where, so he said, “They made me a nice cup of tea.” Meanwhile, the rest of the crew, now realizing he was missing, feared he may have perished. Afterwards he had difficulty living this down! Once he was contacted by the BBC wanting to know if the pilot boat could take a camera crew out to film the Nonsuch, a 17th century replica of an explorer’s ship. They found her off Lundy Island in a howling gale. My father told the somewhat famous TV presenter that he was about to see something few people had witnessed – a 17th century ship riding out a full gale while still at sea. But alas! All the TV people spent the trip with their heads over the side and thus missed their chance of a lifetime!
One of his saddest jobs was taking ships on their last voyage up to Cashmores, the famous ship breakers up the River Usk. It didn’t matter what she was: coaster, warship, liner, even once a submarine, it was always a sad moment when “Finished With Engines” was rung down. One of the most difficult moments in piloting (or so I understand) was bringing a ship into the lock-gates of Newport Dock. Located at the mouth of the Usk River there was a strong cross current, and to fit in the locks required allowing for sidewards tendency of slippage. In docking the largest ship ever to enter Newport, there was only 18 inches on each side of the ship to fit the lock. My father said it was a good job he had brought his shoe horn with him that day!
During this period I had emigrated to Canada and I eventually moved to California to start up and eventually manage the financial service operation of a federal bank in San Francisco. Both my parents were regular visitors, then when my mother died, my father spent three months each winter at our home on the San Mateo Coast, where he loved to walk around the local harbour chatting to the local fisherman and generally being a member of the unofficial “dock committee”. We made a number of trips. Once to Death Valley, one of the hottest places on earth. My father would consider himself naked if he was not in a “collar and tie” and a local ranger told me it was the only time he had seen a man in a tie in years! Another memorable trip was a cruise to the western Caribbean. In all his travels he had never touched the Panama Canal, and he was delighted when the captain sent for him and invited him up to the bridge to meet and observe the canal pilot at work. It appears most of these pilots were Canadian. My father said he had to bite his tongue he had such a desire to take over just one last time! At one point he whispered to himself, “Just a touch of bow thrust,” when the pilot repeated the order almost simultaneously. My father had not lost it!
For many years he was a very proud member of Rotary, and later one of the founder members of Probus. His good humour, natural modesty and teller of stories made him popular with all who met him. No doubt he found the fellowship he had long enjoyed be it in the saloon of the cutter or the foc’s’le of a steamer. When asked how he had lived so long, he would tell people he had never drank or smoked and that he always had a big door at home. He would wait for this to sink in and then when asked why, he would say “to let my halo in!”
In his last years he would like to be driven down to the moor below Newport. There he would look over the channel and say “look, not a ship in sight!” and shake his head.
When it became too much for him to fly to California, my wife and I, now retired, were able to spend a lot of time in frequent visits to the UK. It became obvious as he approached his centennial he would require more around the clock medical attention, so he entered a nursing home where in December of 2005 he finally died just short of that centennial. Like a lot of old sailors, he used a number of nautical phrases. Groceries, for examples, were called “stores”. After he died I found a piece of paper in his jacket pocket. It was headed “Stores for next Friday”. I had to find a suitable verse to put on the memorial cards we were having printed. The verse I choose was what Shackleton said to his men as they looked about them at an appalling disaster with nothing but a frozen and lingering death thousands of miles from any hope. Shackleton simply said to them: “Ship and stores gone – so now we will go home.”
G Barrett Venn
MacDonald, Archie
Archie Macdonald
Archie MacDonald always wanted to go to sea. Born in 1917 in
After the war he served with Eagle Oil, a company, I believe, that looked after the crews and were renowned for their good food. He continued with them until when he met his wife to be and began to look for a position ashore, finishing his seagoing career as Master of the Helmsley 1, a coastal tanker.
He became a Trinity House Pilot in Barrow in Furness in 1951. At this time it was a thriving port with a busy iron ore and shipbuilding trade, with Vickers Armstrong constructing merchant and warships. At the time there were ten pilots who also served the
As Barrows trade slowed, pilots retired and were not replaced. In the later part of his career there would be three. By this time pilot MacDonald was also the dedicated pilot for British Nuclear Fuels. At retirement in 1988 he remained as the dock pilot and continued this until 1990. His retirement may not have been so well received at the local golf club where he could now spend more time and supplemented his pension with regular 5p birdies..
Golf remained a large part of his life, he played until just a year prior to his passing.
Since his death I have been sifting through the large amount of boxed paperwork that he had kept. All the monthly pilotage returns since the early sixties until his retirement were stored. Pictures of ships he had piloted and sailed on and many books on piloting and shipping companies, some of which I have been glad to pass on. I even found his second world war watch duffle coat. There was also, carefully folded up in an old wallet, a cutting from a Gourock newspaper. This told of the return of Captain Archie MacDonald for a period of leave having had his ship sunk from under him, he had never mentioned this to anyone.
Archie MacDonald was a dedicated and well respected pilot, I worked with him numerous times as a pilot boat coxswain and captain of small tugs in Barrow whilst I was on leave. I have been approached several times over the years asking if I would like to apply for the position of pilot in Barrow. In recognition of his skill, patience and understanding and perhaps to the relief of many shipmasters, I have decided to stay at the other end of the tow rope, I could not follow in my fathers footsteps.
Martin MacDonald
Peterson, John
John (Iain) Robert Cambell Peterson (1936-2006)
There was a great sadness felt by many with the news that Iain Peterson had passed away on
Iain moved to Scottish Ship Management and gained his first command on the Barron Dunmore. He joined the Forth Pilotage as a Grangemouth pilot in 1974 and retired in 1993 through ill health. During his time as a pilot, Iain was well liked and highly respected by all. In an administrative capacity, he served on various committees and was chairman of the Association of
Iain was a keen sportsman, particularly rugby which he played and refereed, something that rubbed off on his sons. He was also an ardent curler and a season ticket holder of his local football team, St
Iain, it was said, was never happier than when messing about in boats - be it fishing with his grandchildren or just meandering among the coves of the peninsular where he was raised. Perhaps it is fitting that he was finally laid to rest at Kilchoan, Ardnamurachan.
Iain’s wife Sheilis, his four children and nine grandchildren survive him. They were the fulcrums around which his life rotated. By all who new him, he will be sorely missed. The legacy of his music will continue to be studied and performed by future generations of musicians - a lasting tribute to a remarkable man.
Stuart Hulse
Youde, Ronald Fergus
Ronald Fergus Youde (1910 - 2005)
Article by RF Youde on Piloting WW2 (Page 11) pilotmag.co.uk/userfiles/Pilotmag%20278%20(Jul%2004).pdf
Pilot Ronald Fergus Youde died peacefully on 14th December 2005, aged 95. The son of a leading Chester lawyer, he was born in 1910 and educated at Chester Cathedral Choir School, followed by the King’s School and HMS Conway. In 1927 as a Senior Cadet Captain (HMS Conway) he began what was to prove to be a nineyear apprenticeship in the Liverpool Pilot Service. During 1932-34 he was released to serve as Fourth Officer in the Far-East trade of the Blue Funnel Line. He was Licensed in Liverpool as a Third Class Pilot in 1936. The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 saw him fast-tracked to First Class rank. For his services during the War he was ultimately granted, as were all serving pilots of the time, the honorary Freedom of the City of Liverpool – an honour which he greatly appreciated. In 1945 he was elected to the Liverpool Pilotage Committee and also to the Chair of the Liverpool Pilots’ Association, holding both offices for twenty-five years until relinquishing each one in 1970. In 1948 he was appointed Appropriated Pilot to Anchor Line Ltd. The vessel in the photograph is Anchor Line’s Circassia which had two sister ships, Cilicia and Caledonia, all operating a monthly liner service from Liverpool – with much coastal work to the Clyde and the Bristol Channel when in home waters. Together with Anchor Line’s cargo service to USA, he was kept very busy. RF Youde served Anchor Line from 1948 until the withdrawal of its passenger-service to Bombay in 1964 after which he was appropriated to Shaw Savill & Albion, from which he retired in 1975. Following this he served as a Trustee of the Pilots’ National Pension Fund, eventually relinquishing that post in 1993, aged eighty-three. If the holding of professional office is to be seen as a prize, it may safely be said that RF Youde swept the board of all the prizes available to any pilot of his generation. His leadership was by example and he was a man of few words. It was sometimes said that he could say more with his mouth shut than with his mouth open – and he frequently did so with devastating effect. He could not suffer any fool. He inherited his father’s incisive legal mind and had no difficulty in recognising any aspect of pilotage law. On behalf of pilots in the 1950s he was one of the leading figures in securing the Agreement of Sir Robert Letch (the “Letch Agreement”) in relation to conditions of service. By the authority of the Secretary of State. This Agreement stands to the present day as a precedent benchmark for the benefit of pilots and all others concerned with the organisation of shipping at national level. More locally, as a member of the Liverpool Pilotage Committee, he was the pilot most closely associated with the generally unpopular task of de-commissioning the traditional sea-keeping pilot-cutters, on the grounds of expense, and replacing them with a shorebased launch-service. He never courted popularity in any way and the fact that he achieved any of his aims at all was attributable solely to his unfailing (if sometimes blunt) civility. Beyond his rather lonely professional exterior, family farming connections as a child had instilled in him a love of the countryside and a respect for any good sporting horseman. He had been a keen sporting oarsman when at the King’s School in the early 1920s, in stark contrast of style to the working-boat oarsman which he was soon obliged to become as a pilotage apprentice. Any further interest in sport, however, remained general rather than specific and he was never known to take mere physical exercise of any kind at all. Even golf was anathema to him. All his life, on the other hand, he was an enthusiastic and hard-working gardener, a sharp humorist, a good bridge-player and a ladies’ man. He married Mary Lloyd Evans in 1936 and they became the loving parents of two sons. He was a loving and muchloved husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He remained physically active and mentally razor-sharp to the end, having made many friends in later life and earning the accolade “Everybody’s Grandfather” in doing so. After being widowed in 1980 he lived with Connie Miller, sister of Pilot Cyril James Miller, his former “Conway Chum”. His entire life was devoted to pilotage and his family. Pilotage has lost a good friend. The loss to his family is much the greater.
Barrie Youde
Callaghan, Jim
Jim Callaghan
I was saddened to find that nobody had bothered to comment on the passing of our past President Jim Callaghan. I supposed that bigger fish than I would oblige. I cannot say that as an Executive Committee member “Jim and I” were an item but it was my first experience of meeting a real politician. Jim Callaghan liked being our President and helped the UKPA in more ways than one and probably the most important use of his influence was to do with the Pilots National Pension Fund. The PNPF was in its infancy and the Inland Revenue was loath to concede that pilots could have any pension scheme except a private self-employed fund. We argued, rightfully, with the Letch Agreement in mind, that although technically self-employed we did not have control of our income in the true self-employed sense.
Stalemate ensued until, I believe, a quiet word with Jim seems to have passed down the line to the Inland Revenue and our claims on income and taxation were finally allowed. Many pilots, both retired and working, are in Jim Callaghan’s debt regarding their pensions.
He was a professional politician in every sense of the word, no doubt told lies with aplomb and never used one word when two would do. He was also a smoothie, at one Annual Conference he greeted each arriving delegate personally, his “Good evening Mr and Mrs Godden” without a prompt will not be forgotten. How did he remember who I was - no badges in those days? The UKPA was fortunate in their choice.
Dan McMillan
I am surprised that you received no input about Lord Callaghan as I thought that others, like Frank Berry, had a fund of information. I thought that you would have received many letters concerning his pilotage involvement because I have many anecdotes. His assistance in preventing the “Shell Agreement” in
John Godden
Leney, John Michael
John Michael Leney
Mike, the oldest of three children, was born and brought up in
In 1951 at the age of 16 he joined HMS
He joined the Milford Haven Pilotage Service in August 1970 being appointed a VLCC pilot in 1973. Mike served on the local pilots’ committee and was its chairman 1988/89.
He was elected to the UKPA national committee in 1989 becoming its chairman in 1994 and remaining so until ill-health forced him to retire from active pilotage in 1997.
In April of that year Mike had a successful quadruple by-pass operation and enjoyed good health but was back in hospital in 2004 for a new knee and was due to have a hip replacement early this year. He bore these illnesses with grace and good fortitude retaining his fine sense of humour throughout.
Mike had other interests apart from pilotage. He was a keen non acting member of the local operatic society, being stage manager for many productions and was rewarded by being appointed an honorary life member, this was an interest shared with his wife Anne who is currently President of the Society. He was a past member of the local Lions and set up the Pembrokeshire Branch of the
More recently, with the development of LNG terminals at
His sudden death on 21st December at the age of 70 came as a shock to all who knew him and indeed, due to his exposure locally on the foregoing safety of navigation issues for which he was much respected, to the wider public in Pembrokeshire. Mike is survived and will be sorely missed by his wife Anne, son Christopher, daughter in law Cathy and much loved grandchildren Tom and Emma. He will also be missed by his many friends in pilotage and from his other interests.
Ian Evans
Anderson, James Scott
James Scott (Andy)
It is with sadness that I report the death of Andy Anderson on
Andy was born in Welwyn Garden City on
Andy, when not exercising his rude sense of humour, was very much the English gentleman and a man of strong convictions. His interests were in his garden from which no visiting lady left without an African violet or gentleman without the admonition to “get yourself some rhubarb” and holidaying on the Norwegian coastal steamers for which he had a particular attraction Mary predeceased Andy by 6 years so that left to mourn him were his daughter Helen, son Andrew and two grandchildren He faced his terminal illness with great stoicism and was quite happy with his bed being his last VLCC. His wardrobe the last 80k tonner coming towards him and telling Nos. 2&3 to ease off and 1&4 to take the strain as he approached the berth of his bedside table.
Helen and Andrew were a great comfort to him in his dying days. I too will miss
him. He was an excellent pilot, colleague and friend
Brian Ball,
Retired Milford Haven pilot
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