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Captain James Briggs RN RIP
A delightful and very amusing man. Many of us first
met him at our 2013 reunion. He gave us quite a turn on Gala Night
and refused to be taken away by ambulance, rallying to deliver a very
amusing and interesting after dinner speech. Sadly
he only ever made two other reunions in Torquay 2104 & 2015. He and his
wife Rosemary were very delightful company and it was a pleasure to have
them as our guests. To digress slightly, as many of you will recall,
Cameron Rusby our 1958-60 skipper, was down to attend the 2013 reunion
meet up with Captain Briggs for first time since he turned over command
of HMS Tartar to him. Sadly our skipper did not, make it, his
daughter who was to accompany him phoned to cancel, stating her dad was
very ill, and he "Crossed the bar a few days after phone call.
Four of our 1958 shipmates attended Captain Briggs funeral, Fred Bright,
John & Val Prince, Bob & Heather White and Mick & Jo Dowling.
Also Paul Schorn who was Captain Briggs Navigators Yeoman in 1968-69. Seemly
there were few others sporting Ulster badges on their blazers, all
unknown to us. Also at least 18 other naval personnel, no doubt
from his various commands. The 200 or so crowd preventing our shipmates
from establishing who they were nor getting a chance to speak to
Rosemary Briggs. Ted Ditum and I attended Christine Gibbons funeral same
day, more on that later.
As soon as I had 'signalled' all Ulster's on Captain Briggs "Crossing
then bar", I received a several articles from Ulster shipmates, which I
will append below scans of the Order of Service for Captain Briggs,
along with Christine Gibbons order of service, she was the widow of Alan
Gibbons, both of whom were stalwart reunion supporters.
CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE
(I have not printed the blank pages)
Front Cover |
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Back Cover |
Captain
James Briggs - Naval Eulogy
To read the eulogy click on
one of the buttons below, depending on what version of software you have
installed
Word 2010 (.docx) click
HERE
Word 2003/07 (.doc) click
HERE
& PDF click
HERE
Two read submissions by
Captain John Marshal
Word 2010 (.docx) click
HERE
Word 2003/07 (.doc) click
HERE
& PDF click
HERE
To read a submission by
Shipmate Sid Anning
Word 2010 (.docx) click
HERE
Word 2003/07 (.doc) click
HERE
& PDF click
HERE
Christine Gibbons RIP
Christine's funeral was a
much shorter affair lasting around 35 minutes. All of her family, sons,
daughters, grand kids thanked Ted and I for attending. I think the vicar
got a little flustered as he forgot one of the hymns and no one
corrected him! We were entained afterward at the local Eastcote RBL to a
wonderful feast of sandwiches, sausage rolls and a host of other items.
The journey up was not without incident. I had set the destination
up on my new car which I am slowly coming to grips with all the 'bells &
whistles'. Somewhere after we exited the M4 Ted remarked, I don't this
is right and on checking my built in GPS found for whatever reason our
destination had been deleted and it was trying to take us into
Hammersmith.
Tried to get directions
from two Indians working on a house, they did not speak much Engliah and
had no idea where the crematorium was. Calls to Sean Gibbons
helped a little, but on spotting another person walking in our direction
asked for his help. He whipped out his mobile phone, consulted
Google Maps and pointed us in general direction. Nearing (I
think) our destination, we spotted two police officers strolling along
and stopped to ensure we were heading in right direction.
They kindly explained we
were pretty much pointed in right direction, but to take next left
turn, right at first roundabout and right again at second roundabout.
Well we found the first roundabout, but after travelling several miles
decided to turn back. Lo' and behold there was a sign
pointing to crematorium which was not viable when we travelling in
other direction. Pity about the missing roundabout, I am sure we
would have found it much easier.
This
page last updated on
May 29th, 2018
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