OtH 2017 – OBITUARIES
F/O Tom Scudamore
1918-2017
Having lived for just three months short of 99 years Tom was a wonderful example to us all and I’m sure that all of you who met him in the twenty-four years since the association was formed will remember him as a quiet, unassuming gentle man but beneath this quiet exterior was a very capable, determined and accomplished father, husband, grandfather, great-grandfather, doctor, golfer and mountain rescue team leader. Born in Pontypridd in 1918 as one of five sons of a successful farmer and butcher he was educated privately in Brecon and won a place at Cambridge to study medicine in 1936 despite his school’s lack of a science department. After graduating Tom continued his studies at the London Hospital in Whitechapel and was there from 1939-42, often sleeping in the basement toilets as an ad-hoc shelter against the Blitz. As soon as he qualified he volunteered for duty in the RAF and his first posting was to the comparative tranquillity of RAF Penrhos on the south coast of the Llyn Peninsula. Penrhos was the parent station of RAF Llandwrog (now Caernarfon airfield) and shortly after his arrival Flying Officer Tom Scudamore was summoned by the SMO, Sqn Ldr Collins who said – as ‘Whensoever’ relates
“Look, we have a satellite station called Llandwrog. I’ll be sending you over there from time to time to do a sick parade, because the MO, a chap called Graham, is a bit of a nuisance. He’s very keen on mountaineering, and he’s either on an aircraft crash or he’s taking the medical orderlies on exercises.” Tom went, met Des Graham who had learnt to climb during his university days and the rest, as they say, is history; Tom was bitten by the MR bug! Des Graham invited Tom to go out with the Llandwrog team and they used a civilian GP to cover them when there was a call-out. Tom told Frank Card when he was researching ‘Whensoever’
“That was how I became involved. I went out on exercises and crashes. Not being a mountaineer or a rock-climber I reckon I was a very lucky RAF medical officer, being in the right place at the right time.” When Des Graham was posted overseas at the end of 1943 Tom took over as Team Leader at Llandwrog and when the MRT was relocated to RAF Llanbedr in 1945 Tom went with them attending numerous crashes and saving many lives. He took a keen interest in his Team members and recommended several for national awards. He took part in equipment trials and he continued as a highly effective Team Leader until September 1946 when he was discharged with the rank of Squadron Leader. It was whilst he was at Llanbedr that Tom met and married Mary, one of the station’s Met officers.
In 1948 Tom, Mary and their son John moved to Sandiacre near Nottingham to join Tom’s elder brother Hubert set up one of the fledgeling NHS practices, Ruth was born a year later. Tom would stay with that practice for the next 35 years. Having learnt to play golf during the school holidays in S. Wales Tom took it up again and joined Erewash golf club in rolling farmland and as his standard grew he represented the club and Derbyshire in the county team and became club captain 1958; he delighted in telling the story of when Ernest Marples, Minister of Transport, personally visited the club to purchase land for the M1 Tom persuaded him that not only did they need sufficient land to replace all the lost greens but that members favourite hole would be cut off by the motorway and Marples was persuaded to include an additional tunnel under the M1 to allowed continued access! In 2008, to mark the 50th anniversary of Tom’s time as Captain, the captain’s Cup was named after him. He was also the club’s president and a Trustee.
When our association was formed in 1993 Tom quickly became a member and remained an active participant for many years attending reunions, marching in the Remembrance Day parade in London and enjoying meeting old and making new friends and rarely without a glass in one hand and a customary cigarette in the other, a habit that continued for the rest of his life. His favourite tipples were either a schooner of Harvey’s Bristol Cream sherry or a dram of whisky, a proud boast being “never having drunk a glass of water in my life.”
When Mary became ill in 2002 Tom smoothly adopted the role of house husband and nursed her lovingly until she died in 2005, during which time he acquired a legendary reputation for his mixed grills. He adapted to his own failing health with typical stoicism, he remained in his home assisted by carers and when I spoke to him earlier this year he quietly announced that “I’m going, I’ve lost interest in food, I’m losing weight, I’ve seen it too many times before not to know what’s happening.” His passing, in his sleep, at home, was entirely fitting. We were proud to represent the MRA at the celebration of his life and his family appreciated the presence of the Standard, amazingly one of the many Erewash members in attendance was a Battle of Britain pilot.
Tom is survived by his son John and his daughter Ruth who both followed him into medical careers and by 5 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.
By Brian Canfer; who humbly acknowledges the considerable assistance of Ruth and John in compiling this
brief account of Tom’s life. Frank Card is thanked for the quotations from “Whensoever”.
John Coull MRS, 1953-2017
by
Alister Haveron
I had a most heart-wrenching call from John a couple of days before he passed away, but typically of JC, he was putting plans in place for his funeral service. He was always meticulous in his planning and organising, and he wanted today to be no different. He asked me to do his eulogy, which is an honour, and he gave me a short list of things he wanted mentioning. We had a fairly good chat about it all and, when finishing off, I said: “I’ll give you a call at the weekend, John.” He said, “Alister, I won’t be here at the weekend.” I was totally devastated.
This was someone that was a very close friend and that I had known and worked and socialised with in mountain rescue and reunions for over forty-five years. We had been through fun times, sad times and some very hard times together and I know that there are many of you here today that would say the same thing.
John was brought up in the Deep South, Surrey and Kent, but I think we all know him as a Buckie boy. He first started climbing when he was only 14 and a member of the Boy Scouts, they had regularly gone rock climbing at Harrison’s Rocks and walking in the North Downs. Another one of his sporting talents in his early years was fencing; he was the Kent Junior Champion in fencing at one time. John joined the Royal Air Force as a Halton Apprentice, or Brat as they were known, to become an aircraft technician at the age of 15 and a half. Very soon after getting there he joined the station mountaineering club, and he even went further and became a member of the Aylesbury Mountaineering Club, along with his two mates, Kevin Landy and Iain Lawrence. Even at this young age he loved the outdoors and adventure, showing total dedication and commitment. A wee story from Kev, John had gone up during his summer leave to his grannies in Buckie with his dad. Kev came up later and joined them. The two loons went off tenting and rock climbing on the sea cliffs at Portnockie. JC had a bad thirty-foot fall into the sea but insisted in self rescuing himself, more concerned that Kev got all the new shiny gear out first so that it wasn’t damaged by the sea water. He wouldn’t let Kev call his dad either in case he stopped him climbing again. They made it back to the tent and the next day managed to walk to Findochty with Kev carrying both of their very heavy
He joined the RAF Leuchars Mountain Rescue Team in 1971 and after a few years there he went up to Kinloss and stayed there until 1985 when he had to take a posting to St Athan on promotion. At that time there was a small gang of oldies at St Athan from Kinloss and Leuchars, all in our 30s, John, Joe Mitchell, Brian Carr and me. Less than 2 years and JC was back up North of the border again to Kinloss. John was to go on to become the longest continuous serving Mountain Rescue member on RAF MR Service, 1971 to 2008, 36 years. He joined the RAF in 1968 and retired in 2008 as the Warrant Officer in charge of the Tornado Maintenance Squadron at Lossiemouth, after serving over 39 years.
John is also the only Mountain Rescue troop to have ever served in all four branches of Search and Rescue. That is, Mountain Rescue, Rescue Co-ordination Centre, Crew Chief on the SAR Nimrod, and Engineering Manager on 202 Squadron Helicopters.
I asked JC, out of all the hundreds of call-outs that he had been on, what was the most memorable. He answered straight away, the Viscount crash. This was a Vickers Viscount aircraft with four crew on board that took off from Glasgow to carry out an air test
I attended the Team Leader Course with John, Cas and Mike Taylor and Terry Lewis in 1975. JC was the youngest troop to ever attend a Team Leader Course, only turned 22 years of age. The TL course was a 13 weeks course then, and we had an administration phase at Grantown with George Bruce. We convinced George to let us go to the West Coast for 6 days Munro bagging and rock climbing. He also agreed to let us take the Gemini boat, so off we went to near Poolewe and then up a fairly dodgy track for the Gemini trailer to Fionn Loch, launched and headed for Carnmore Bothy. Para Handy and his crew would have put us to shame, five complete novices in boat handling, it was the good old days before so much health and safety, lots of fun and adventure. After a few days at
John was a very accomplished mountaineer and skier, you could write a book or books about JC’s MR work and expeditions, but there is one expedition that was different and that is the Joint Service expedition to South Georgia in 1982, just before the Falklands war. Also at the same time, there were Argentinians on the Island under the guise of scrap metal merchants dismantling the old whaling station at Grytviken. The expedition members had been picked up by HMS Endurance and on their way back to the Falklands Special Forces were helicoptered onto Endurance to debrief the expedition members on what they had seen taking place at the Grytviken and Leith settlements and
John was a humble and genuine troop and certainly not one to blow his own trumpet. JC was totally supportive of any Team Leader that he ever worked with and an outstanding mentor for the newer members of the Mountain Rescue Service. He was also an extremely competent Aircraft Engineer on a wide range of aircraft and especially on Nimrod, Tornado and Seakings and was highly regarded and respected wherever he worked. He was awarded a very well deserved MBE in 2001 not only for his Mountain Rescue work but also for his outstanding aircraft engineering and management expertise.
JC was one of life’s true gentlemen and a great friend to us all, leaving us with many fantastic memories and laughs.
You may be gone but you will never be forgotten John.
John, Nicola, Kacie, Andrew, Patsy and the family circle I offer you our deepest and heartfelt sympathy at this sad and difficult time and also the condolences of the RAF Mountain Rescue circle past and present.