Royal Navy commander who laughed in the face of his most deadly enemy
BRITAIN is full of unsung heroes and heroines who deserve recognition. Here, in our weekly obituary column, the moving and inspirational stories of ordinary people who have lived extraordinary lives, and who died recently, are told by their loved ones . . .
When he was just seven years old my son David announced that he was going to be a ‘ navy person’. not long afterwards, I took him to see That’s entertainment! and he decided he wanted to be Fred Astaire.
he went to tap dancing lessons for a while — the only boy in the class — but ultimately the Royal navy won. By the end of his 25year naval career he’d travelled the world, reached the rank of Commander and received an OBe for leadership.
I used to tease him that if he annoyed me I would tell all his shipmates that he could tap dance — a talent he kept quiet about! We’d fall about laughing at that.
he had a lovely sense of humour, even at the times in life when you’d think there was no humour to be found. David was diagnosed with stage 4 kidney cancer just a few days after his 50th birthday.
Towards the end of his life, he developed a blood clot on his lung and had to take blood thinning medication every day. I remember him saying: ‘The doctor says I’ll be on this for the rest of my life, so he’s given me a two-week supply!’
The cancer arrived at the worst time. he had retired from the navy and joined a shipping company. he was also working as a regional director with the CBI.
he and his wife Jo and stepson Zachary had moved into a farmhouse near Boston in Lincolnshire, acquired several rescue chickens and two large dogs. he was so happy. Then came this terrible news — yet from him there was no wallowing, no complaining. ‘It is what it is, Mum,’ he said. ‘We just have to get on with it. Life deals you a set of cards, and that’s that.’
In fact, the cancer just propelled him to do so much. he started a blog about his cancer, which he called the ‘monkey on his back’. he saw the cancer as his enemy, and set out to fight it.
Some people shrink into themselves when they face something like this. David did the opposite. he was frustrated that he couldn’t work so he got a job invigilating at GCSe exams. Then, he volunteered to teach maths at a local college.
With his qualifications (he was a chartered engineer), they snapped him up. David knew there were plenty like him, people with long-term health problems who could not get work but who still had a lot to offer, so he threw himself into helping them.
With the help of a former shipmate who was working for a global internet company, he started a charity — Astriid, which was like a dating site, but matching potential employees with employers.
It was so simple, but a brilliant idea. nothing like that had been done before. Astriid recently won the race to become Recruiter’s Charity of the Year.
My older son Stephen is now the chairman, and is determined to carry on David’s work.
even when time was running out, David kept pushing on. Many years before, when he and his first wife had lived in the Dordogne, he’d started a novel. now, he dusted it down and finished it. A French Affair is typically David — full of humour and interesting characters.
When the cancer charity Macmillan asked him to pose for their annual calendar, he said yes. he was only one of two men to agree. I have the calendar in front of me now. David is Mr June — he’s posing with a rugby ball. We didn’t know when he agreed to do it that he wouldn’t be here by June.
It is a devastating thing to lose a child, and to watch David’s decline was very difficult. he’d been such a big strapping chap — 6ft 2in and very fit — but he became very frail towards the end. not in spirit, though. he remained funny, clever, lifeenhancing until the end.
Yes, we were heartbroken to lose him, but we also had 53 years with him, for which we are so grateful.
David’s funeral is next Friday and we are putting together a selection of photographs — from him in full military uniform to one of the Queen awarding him his OBe. I have one of him as a little boy with blonde hair. That little boy went far, in so many ways. he made his mother incredibly proud.