Island Life Magazine Ltd February/March 2013 | Page 31

INTERVIEW
the next job. Even now sometimes
when I wake up in the night I can still
see the flames of the ships burning
and hearing those cries. I think of the
families who lost those men at sea.”
Roy was Navigating Officer in HMS
Punjabi, engaged in convoys to Russia
off the North Cape of the icy Barents
Sea in 1942 when his ship was sunk
with the loss of 136 lives. He said:
“I had been on the bridge and got
thrown into the water with a few other
stragglers. I ended up on the hull of
the ship holding the ship’s cat – and I
am not a cat lover!

“Somehow we avoided mines,
submarines and dive-bombing aircraft,
and we were picked up by another
destroyer. I had been in the icy water
a long time, and my whole body was
virtually stiff, but I was determined
to get through it. I was one of the few
lucky survivors, having been married
just a few weeks earlier to my wife
Monica. Her wedding present to me
was a thick jacket, which unbeknown
to me her mother had sewn a silver
flask of brandy – which probably
helped save my life.”
Roy met Monica while they were

playing hockey against each other on
St Helens Green. He smiled: “She
was better than me, so I thought I
better marry her.” They were wed at St
Helens Church, and had been married
nearly 71 years when he passed away.
Within three weeks of his ship being
sunk in World War II, he was back at
sea, and remained in the Navy until
1959. Then after taking premature
retirement he became a teacher, via a
spell with Rolls Royce. He said: “I felt
ready to start again, and that is exactly
what I did, but on a much-reduced
income.”
After three years with Rolls Royce he
turned to teaching, and was accepted
as a mature student at Southampton
University. Having sailed through
exams as he sailed the oceans, Roy
took a post at Cowes High School, was
promoted to Head of Department at
Priory Girls School, and then moved
to Upper Chine Public School for
Girls.
Education re-organisation resulted
in a switch to the former Grammar
School, now Carisbrooke High
School, and he was promoted to
Senior Master, where he pioneered
teaching techniques that were followed
in schools right across the country.
During his life Roy visited some 50
different countries and was also an
accomplished sportsman, enjoying
football, tennis, athletics, boxing,
cricket fencing, and of course hockey.
Upon retirement he played bowls and
bridge, and often sailed and swam.
When his beloved Monica fell ill,
and he could no longer care for her,
he visited her twice a day at the Elms
Nursing Home until his passing. He
once said: “When we got married
it was for ‘better or worse’. While
it could now be labelled ‘for worse’
I am cheerful enough to regard our
continued, albeit broken life together
as a happy ending, compared with so
very many tens of thousands of others.
So as we move into the final chapter it
is ‘for better’.”

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