Two couplets from ‘Aids to Memory for Navigation of Vessels at Sea’ which we learnt as twelve-year olds, when navigation depended upon seeing, hearing, and keeping the rules – their value has lasted well.Ken Richmond and I were boys together in Russell-Cotes Nautical School – a Dr Barnardo’s Home which prepared us for a life in the Merchant Navy. We knew nothing of our parents but both of us had been boarded out by Barnardos as small boys and remembered our foster families well; the Birchenough family at Leek in Staffordshire provided lifelong friendship for Ken.

We had expressed our wish to go to sea at the age of ten, and were termed ‘Elementaries’ at the school until we became fully committed as ‘Nauticals’ aged fourteen. Much of our elementary education was in seamanship, and we learnt the Morse and Semaphores Codes, the International Flags, knots and splices, and our navigation with no difficulty. The uniform and discipline of the nautical school also came easily enough to us, and, as elementaries, we both gained good conduct badges, were promoted to Leading Hands, and played in the band. We were friends and rivals

Ken went on to become a Nautical and was awarded the ‘Boy of the Year’ title. The Chief Officer of the school, Mr Spalding, himself a Master Mariner, befriended Ken and gave him special tutoring, with the advice that he should have the ambition to become a Master Mariner in his turn.

It was customary for the Nauticals to go to sea aged sixteen as deckhands in the Union Castle Line, but when Ken reached this stage the Commanding Officer of the school gave him the alternative offer of a post as a deckboy aboard a private yacht – the Black Swan - and Ken accepted. It was on board the Black Swan, sailing around the British Isles, that Ken first learnt practical seamanship. More importantly, he came to the notice of Sam Long, who was a guest aboard his uncle’s boat. Sam’s experience in the Royal Naval Coastal Command, and as a prisoner of war, had led him towards the Ministry of the Church of England, and during his subsequent training at Mirfield he became Ken’s guardian and guide.

Ken attended Sam’s ordination at York in 1947, and joined him in his first parish at Hornsea in East Yorkshire, and it was there that Ken made a base for himself. Sam also introduced Ken to the Managing Director of the Ellerman-Wilson Shipping Line, based in nearby Hull, which resulted in a successful interview for a post as an officer cadet, and the beginning of Ken’s formal training to become a Master Mariner. Throughout this time Sam Long encouraged Ken in both his spiritual and social development.

During four years as an officer cadet Ken learnt all aspects of managing a ship from his Chief Officers, initially aboard the SS Albano, trading from London to Denmark, and then on the MV Sacramento trading between Hull and New York. His voyages then became lengthier, as trading patterns changed, and he saw many countries. Ken’s letters at that time, written from aboard his ship somewhere across the world, were full of the life at sea for which we had prepared as boys. When he came ashore at London I would sometimes see him, and accompany him to the clergy house at St Augustine’s Haggerston, in East London, where Sam Long had moved to in 1950.But it was from his base at Hornsea that Ken put down the roots from which grew his own family, gathered here today, with many friends and members of this church, to lay him to rest.

His nautical training entailed study at both the Trinity House Nautical College in Hull and the King Edward VII Nautical School in London; in 1952 he obtained his Second Mate’s Certificate, which entitled him to navigate the ship at sea.In 1954, following further study in Hull, Ken obtained his First Mate’s Certificate, and, with great pride, went aboard the MV Cavallo as Second Officer, with two gold stripes on his arm. In the same year Sam Long, Ken’s guardian, mentor and friend, was married to Mary Rainsford.

It took Ken a further three years to reach the ambition of his Barnardo childhood, and on 23rd September 1957 he qualified as a Master Mariner. Nor was this without cost, for the life at sea took a serious toll on his stomach.

Happily, his life ashore had progressed. As the song had it: ‘All the nice girls love a sailor’ – and there were plenty of nice girls in Hornsea. In 1960 one of them was shrewd enough to know that her Valentine’s card was from Ken, and sent one to him; by March of that year she had accepted his proposal of marriage, and on the 15th October 1960 Geraldine and Kenneth were married by Sam Long at St Nicholas’s Church in Hornsea. They have continued to exchange Valentine Cards ever since, and it is through the response of the vicar and members of St Mary’s Church, Hayling Island, to Gerry’s special request that we are able to gather here with Derek, Andrew, Philippa and their families and friends on the day dedicated to the saint of love.

Back in 1960, as a married man, Ken was glad to get the third gold stripe on his arm and become Chief Officer aboard SS Livorno.

With the decline of the size of the Merchant Fleet by that time, opportunities for further promotion were diminishing. Ken also faced increasing family responsibilities, and the threat to his health of continued life at sea. In 1962, therefore, with the arrival of his son Andrew, Ken decided to come ashore and take up the post of Patrol Officer with the Medway Port Operations Service. The navigation skills acquired during his nautical training were thus made available to others.In the same year he consented to become godfather to my daughter, Jane, who is with us here today.

Having moved his home from Hornsea to the Isle of Sheppey, and added their daughter Philippa to their family, Ken and Gerry were able to live a full family life to which he added the rebuilding of his local church, bowls and cribbage, despite late complications of peptic ulceration and the development of ankylosing spondylitis which seriously affected his spine.

He served on the Medway for thirty years, during the last few of which I saw quite a lot of him as one of a quartet of Barnardo boys from the Russell Cotes Nautical School that met and discussed life in Dr Barnardo’s Homes and thereafter. It was characteristic of Ken that he contributed a cheerful geniality to this soul-searching biographical work, and when he retired from Sheppey to Hayling Island, not only applied himself to his family of growing grandchildren, and to his games of bowls, but also took up painting and completed the writing of his autobiography entitled From Sea to Shore. This slim blue volume is a fine account of his life. It was published by Badgerwood Publications LLP who have also used a coloured picture painted by Ken on one of their website pages at Badgerwood Publications (click to visit).

Having joined St Mary’s Church here Ken became a member of various committees and took a keen interest in all the activities of the Church on Hayling Island.

Last summer he was with a number of us who gathered for a reunion in the building which once served as the chapel for the Russell Cotes Nautical School at Parkstone, in Dorset. His spinal condition had by then caused a severe flexion deformity, but he kept his usual smiling face upright, and contributed vigorously to discussions of future arrangements for reunions.We talked of those days sixty years ago when we trained for the sea.

I address him now as a good lifelong friend: How went that other verse Ken?