Sadly, I have to report the death of my last remaining grandparent, Thomas Henry Brown Shaw (Harry to his friends), just a few weeks ago on 6th February 2010. I ummed and ahhed about posting about such an immensely personal event, but in today’s world, the Daily Telegraph Notice is online for all to see and I felt that I would be doing a disservice to grandad not to talk about him. Rather than write about him myself, however, I think it is best to let Harry’s own words do the talking.
Firstly, a few months ago Jim Norris from the local radio station, Radio Winchcombe, conducted an interview with Harry, where he talked about his life (and it was a long one; he was 101!), the Navy, and his family. You can listen to this interview by clicking on the following links (each part is about ten minutes long): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.
Secondly, Harry had made, in the early 1990s, a typed-up one-page summary of his life. This is it:
I was born at a house called BAYVIEW, Greenisland, Belfast, during the forenoon of 1st October 1908. The house belonged to my grand-father Watters and was run by Aunt Mabel and Aunt Elizabeth. My mother, Kathleen, was the youngest of a large family. My father was a Naval Surgeon then serving at the Naval Barracks in Sheerness. Early life involved being moved around depending on my father’s appointments; a nurse was constantly in attendance. During a spell at the R.N. Hospital, Haslar, my brother, Terence, was born in March 1911. In October 1912, my father went to sea in H.M.S. FALMOUTH, so my mother took us to 52 Whitwell Road, Southsea, where my grandfather -now retired- was living.
With the outbreak of the War in August 1914, the FALMOUTH was moved to Scapa Flow along with the rest of the Grand Fleet; we were by now in rooms in Chatham as it was the ship’s Home Port, but it was not long before we were back in Southsea. By 1915, we were in rooms in Dunfermline as the ship was using Rosyth as a base port. I was eventually sent to a day school in Southsea sometime in 1917, being boarded with the aunts in Whitwell Road.
I entered the Naval College Dartmouth as a Naval Cadet in May 1922; went to sea in the battleship RAMILLIES in May 1926 just in time to take part in the General Strike when the ship was sent to Liverpool. In August, we were guardship for Cowes Week. I was transferred to the battlecruiser RENOWN in September and so found myself sailing on a World Cruise conveying the Duke and Duchess of York to visit Australia and New Zealand. By now, 1927, I was a midshipman as opposed to a naval cadet.
In 1929, courses in various naval subjects lead [sic] to my appointment as a Lieutenant to the destroyer VENETIA based on Malta. It soon became necessary to choose which of the various specialist courses I wished to take. I chose Navigation which meant that I had to go back to school at H.M.S. DRYAD, a “stone frigate” in Portsmouth Dockyard. My first job as a Navigation Officer was to H.M.S. LUPIN, a sloop in the Persian Gulf; 1932-34. This was followed by another spell at DRYAD as an Instructor, during which time I was married to the girl (1935) whom I first met when at the day school in Southsea in 1917.
Various temporary sea appointments followed, but by 1938 I had joined the new destroyer SOMALI whilst still under construction. The outbreak of War in 1939 found me in Scapa Flow which was to be the ship’s base for the three years I served in her. I was awarded the D.S.C. in 1940 for my part in the operations off Norway. Other wartime appointments were:- the cruiser LIVERPOOL (1942) involved convoys to North Russia and Malta; the cruiser CLEOPATRA (1943) was employed in support of the Army in North Africa; the aircraft carrier INDOMITABLE (1944) was employed in the Indian Ocean and was based on Trincomalee in Ceylon.
In December 1944 I was promoted to Commander. Back in the UK, an Admiralty job was my first shore job in six years. I took the Naval Staff Course in 1948; one of the officers in my group at Greenwich was a Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten. In 1949, I was the 2i/c of the cruiser JAMAICA based on Bermuda until the ship was redeployed to Hong Kong following what became known as the AMETHYST incident. In 1950, I was back in the Admiralty for two years. Then a spell at Chatham Dockyard as the Assistant Queen’s Harbour Master. In 1954, I was loaned to the R.N.Z.N. and held the post as Superintendent of the Auckland Naval Dockyard in the acting rank of Captain. In 1956, I was again in the Admiralty for what was my last appointment before being placed on the retired list in 1958.
By chance, I became a freelance tutor in Mathematics, and gradually gave more and more time to working in a preparatory school in Dorking where I taught Mathematics and Science. I kept this up until 1977. Since then, I have been Secretary of the Ewhurst Film Society plus being the treasurer of two other local organisations.
We look forward to celebrating our Diamond Wedding on Pearl harbour Day 1995.
[New Post] Harry: In His Own Words http://railwayroad.com/FamilyTree/Diary/... #genealogy
Whilst browsing to find out about my late paternal grandfather, Henry Nash Watters born in Belfast N Ireland in 1879, I came across the info on your site. My grandfather, as a young man, emigrated to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia in the early 1900s. He married Ethel May Coates-Palgrave. I know that he had a sister in Northern Ireland called, I thought, Elsie Watters, who married into SHAW family and had sons who joined the Royal Navy, one called Terence. My father’s name was William Terence Watters, born in Southern Rhodesia in 1919. He survived WWII, but his brother, Patrick, born in 1914, serving with the South African forces, died in Italy. The son of Uncle Paddy (Patrick) Watters has two sons.
I am going to Northern Ireland next week on a short trip and thought it would be amazing to be able to meet any distant relatives.