Extraordinary life War hero Ray dies at 99
APILL war hero has died aged 99 after an extraordinary life. Ray Buck, a merchant seaman who served the Allies on D-Day, was also a grandfather and poet well-known for his storytelling at Clapton-in-Gordano’s Black Horse Inn.
His friends and family remember a man full of endearing quirks, from his love of singing out of tune in the pub, to his hatred of TV remote controls.
Ray was still regularly driving for a pint at the Black Horse until a few weeks before he died on October 15, following an infection.
His grandson Somerset Hughes said: “I visited him before he passed away at home and I said goodbye. He was not really with it at that point, but I said I hoped I’d live to be half the man he was.”
Born and bred in Pill, Ray was always proud of his heritage.
“My grandfather, my greatgrandfather, my great-great-grandfather worked on ships in the Bristol Channel – there was only one place I was going to end up, and that was out at sea,” he told the Western Daily Press last year.
Though he spent much of his life sailing across the world, Ray was always drawn back to Pill.
Somerset, 46, said: “If you ever introduced yourself to him, he’d ask where you were from, and then he would always say the same thing. Even if you were from Avonmouth, he’d say, ‘You’re an alien then.’
“For him, the world revolved around Pill, Clapton-in-Gordano, Abbots Leigh and Portbury – even though he’d been everywhere, Pill was the centre of his universe.”
As a merchant seaman during the Second World War, Ray risked his life to keep Britain fed, facing near misses from U-boat torpedoes and airborne attacks from Italian fighters.
He volunteered to board the Empire Capulet, delivering tanks, troops and ammunition for the Normandy Landings of 1944.
Enemy aircraft attacked the ship, dropping bombs and setting fire to a nearby raft, with 16 casualties.
Ray said last year: “Fear wasn’t something I suffered from. I used to tell myself, ‘Keep your head down and you’ll be all right’ – and I always was.”
Somerset said: “He never told me much about the war. When you’re a kid, you don’t realise the horrors of it. All he would ever say was, ‘It’s not makeup and Hollywood - war’s not like that.’”
Ray was also a Pill Hobbler, mooring and towing vessels at Portbury Docks as his forefathers did – and Somerset has followed in the family tradition.
“He took great delight that I followed him in that,” Somerset said.
Ray received a Legion d’Honneur for his role in D-Day. After 50 years on the seas, he retired to write poetry and spend more time with his wife Rose, who died in 1991, and three children.
Somerset said: “He was very boisterous and loved to sing, though he wasn’t the best at it.
“He was meticulous in his timekeeping, which came from his days as a merchant.
“Every Sunday, he’d go to the Anchor in Ham Green, arriving at exactly 12.15pm. If it got to 12.30pm and he wasn’t there, they’d phone me.
“It was the same at the Black Horse – he was there 12.15pm every Tuesday.”
Ray was not a man to stray from his habits, even when it came to manually switching the channel on his television.
“After remote controls were invented, everyone was happy to change channels from the sofa, but he would have no such nonsense – he called it the height of laziness,” Somerset laughed.
Ray did not give up easily on his favoured activities either, walking four miles from Pill to Ashton Court every day until he was 85.
When his legs slowed down, he replaced the trip with a two-mile walk to the George pub in Abbots Leigh, which he did daily until he was 90.
“He never wore glasses, but I think that was more of a vanity,” Somerset joked. He was deaf in his right ear from gunnery training. They were taught when the gun fired to put their fingers in their ear and open their mouth.
“One time he said he forgot to open his mouth and blew his eardrum out. I wasn’t convinced.”
Somerset says he would have bet his house on Ray living to 100.
But shortly after his 99th birthday, Ray knocked into something while at the pub and cut his leg, which became fatally infected.
One of his drinking buddies, Spencer Price, said: “The man was a hero. I met him about five years ago at the Black Horse. He was a sailor, but he wouldn’t be effing and blinding. He wasn’t well-spoken in a posh way – he was just a gentleman.
“His favourite thing to sing after a pint or two was Maggie May – not the Rod Stewart one, but a folk song about a sailor coming home to Liverpool Lime Street.”
Spencer, 51, a glazing business owner from Clifton, said he was often stunned at how physically fit “the strong fella” remained in his 90s.
“Someone saw him pushing his own car when it broke down in Pill last year, I couldn’t even do that at my age.”
The last time Spencer spoke to Ray was on the phone in September.
“He told me, ‘Spencer there’ll be a new bench outside the Black Horse with my name on it soon.’
“I said, ‘Don’t be so stupid, you’ll be fine.’ Sadly he didn’t make it to 100.
“My mate and I are going to get Ray’s face etched into a plaque and put it on a bench at the Black Horse.”
“We’ll never forget him,” he said.