Youde, Ronald Fergus

January 15th, 2006 by JCB
Posted in History, Obituaries | 1 Comment »

Ronald Fergus Youde (1910 – 2005)

Article by RF Youde on Piloting WW2 (Page 11)

https://pilotmag.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/pilotmag-284-final.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