Flying Fish 2015-1

RICHARD ANDERTON OCC Club Secretary 2005–2014 (Richard was our Club Secretary from June 2005 until his sudden death on 27 October last year, but even those of us who worked with him throughout that time knew little about his life. The following is based on the homily given at his funeral by the Reverend Canon Denis Mulliner, Canon of Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal. Other material was collated and edited by Jenny Crickmore-Thompson.)

Richard thought he was a Yorkshireman, and he was one by paternity, but he was actually born in Bournemouth, on 23 September 1946. In 1951, when he was five, his father was posted to Korea during the Korean War, and his mother lived in Hong Kong to be near him. Richard went to prep school in North Yorkshire, so he breathed his ancestral air at an early age, before going on to Sherborne School in Dorset for the rest of his schooling. When he wasn’t away at boarding school Richard lived with his uncles and aunts at Martlets near Fleet in Hampshire.

When his father came home from the Far East he was appointed Commandant of the Star & Garter Home on Richmond Hill, so the family moved to Ancaster House by the Richmond Gate of Richmond Park. Richard loved cycling in the Park, collecting mud from Pen Ponds, and wiring up electric bell and wireless circuits in the garden shed. He much admired Mr Taylor, an engineer who worked at the Star & Garter, and as an engineer himself later in life he followed the example of Mr Taylor’s habitual untidiness, which Richard concluded was the proper behaviour for an engineer!

At Sherborne Richard enjoyed both sailing and doing the lighting and sound for school plays and concerts, including making a recording of his friend Jeremy Irons singing rock music in the boys’ bathroom! The Signals section of the Sherborne School Combined Cadet Force gave him the chance to tinker with the field telephones, and even to talk on the wireless to the British Forces stationed in Germany. When his parents moved to Lymington he joined the Royal Lymington Yacht Club. He had his own GP14 dinghy, and sailed with his friend Howard Gosling in a regatta: they won their race, which was reported in The Times because they were the heaviest crew and the only ones who didn’t capsize in the strong winds!

Richard read electrical engineering at Imperial College at the same time as working in industry with EMI. He got his private pilot’s licence and would fly from time to time as part of his job. While still with EMI he worked on various defence projects including military thermal imagers, and was assigned in that capacity to the Iranian Embassy siege in 1980. His work was classified as secret – he went regularly to a military base in the Outer Hebrides, and for security reasons was not allowed to go to Ireland during the troubles there.

Another side of Richard’s character was revealed by his interest in choral music. His sister Mary introduced him to the Hampton Choral Society while he was still at university, and he sang with the choir for the rest of his life. He was Chairman of the Society from 1973 until he died, and arranged tours to France several times in those years.

Richard met Sue in 1972 and courted her assiduously and successfully, wining and dining her, and driving her around the country in his TR6 sports car. They were 79