Extraordinary LIVES
MICHAEL was born into a farming family in Spalding, Lincs, but they moved to Peterborough for his father’s work. As a boy, he was a member of the Sea Cadets and that inspired his desire to see the world. He did have a job lined up for when he left school, but his papers came through first for the Royal Navy. In 1960, he started his Navy life at HMS Ganges, the famous training establishment where recruits went through the gates as boys and marched out as men. Nicknamed Fezz, he went on to serve on many ships and shore bases. In 1965 and 1967, he was in the Royal Navy field gun team — where sailors compete to transport heavy artillery over and through a series of obstacles in the shortest time — at the Royal Tournament in London’s Earls Court. When Sir Francis Chichester rounded Cape Horn in August 1966 during his solo circumnavigation of the globe, Michael was on board the ice patrol ship HMS Protector, which was following this epic journey. And in 1969, he was on board HMS Endurance, commonly called The Plum, which picked up Sir Walter ‘Wally’ Herbert from the
MY HUSBAND MICHAEL
North Pole after his solo walk. Michael was one of the crew awarded the Blue Nose because he had travelled to the South Pole, Equator and North Pole in less than six months. We were introduced by a mutual friend, Lynn Morrell, whose parents had a newspaper shop in Thorpe Hesley, South Yorkshire, in October 1966. We went on a few dates, but then both decided to go our separate ways! I enlisted in the WRAC — the Women’s Royal Army Corps — in 1969 and we began writing to each other while Michael was away at sea on HMS Endurance. On his return in May 1970, I came home to meet his ship. Three months later, we wed at Brierley register office and had a fabulous marriage for just short of 50 years. We did not have children, but did have plenty of pets. When Michael left the Royal Navy in 1972, he worked at Houghton Main colliery, near Barnsley, where he was nicknamed Sailor. When the mine closed, he worked for the NHS and after retirement volunteered at a local hospice. I honestly think ice, snow and cold were in his blood. We went on holiday many times to Canada — once, travelling across the country by rail, he was amused that he was the only person to have a shower before they all froze. On a trip to the Eskimo museum (as it was then called) in Churchill on Hudson Bay, the curator was astonished Michael had met Wally Herbert, and they talked for hours.
MichaEl PaRKER, born May 20, 1945; died april 2, 2020, aged 74.