A Tribute to Peter Loyd
We said goodbye to Peter Loyd, a much-loved member of our congregation, on 27th May. His daughter Sophie Newing gave a moving address, describing Peter’s full and active life. The full text will be published in the next parish magazine. Below is just a snapshot from her address reflecting on Peter’s approach to life and his lifelong love of the sea and his wide family who will miss him very much, as will his many friends at Hampstead Parish Church.
Peter Loyd was a loving husband to Rosemary,
father to Julie, William, Tony and me,
step-father to Anna and Charlotte,
grandfather to Chloe, Kate, Freddie and Gus,
and step-grandfather to Saria and Louis.
…….It was crossing over to the Isle of Wight by paddle steamer, at the age of 12 which started his lifelong love of the sea and the determination to go to sea.
Peter joined the Royal Marines in September 1941.
He served for 16 and a half years. He served on HMS Belfast in the Arctic and on Russian convoy duty. He told us of “Gales and storms off Iceland with boats and guardrails carried away, or the sea freezing on the foredeck so every morning “all Hands on deck to the ‘chipping stations’ ” to get rid of the weight of the ice on the bows”. He also served on HMS Nigeria and in India, Burma, South Africa, Malta, as aide-de-camp to a General and in 42 Commando in Malaya fighting terrorists in the jungle.
My father loved the Royal Marines.
In his words: “ The Royal Marines taught me all the lessons I ever needed in life.
They taught me love and respect for my fellow men.
They taught me ethical standards and decency, and that there is only one standard that is good enough and that is the best.
Anything that wasn’t absolute excellence simply wasn’t acceptable.
And they taught me morality as I had never been taught it before – that you never ask anyone to do anything that you are not prepared to do yourself; that you look after your men before you think of looking after yourself; that where you are likely to face active service conditions or conditions of great stress, you think through in advance the ethical concepts of warfare of any situation that you may face, so that you take the correct, moral course of action.”
Later, “Peter volunteered as a first mate with the Ocean Youth Club; creating life-changing sailing trips for groups of disadvantaged young people, teaching them the phonetic alphabet, morse code and knot tying (getting the rabbit going the right way around the tree for a bowline) and in his words “passing on the thrill of sailing and the sheer wonder of the open sea”.
The love of travel and spirit of adventure was imparted to me once with sage advice “geckos are a good thing, for they eat mosquitoes, but do be careful that they don’t fall in your gin and tonic”
………….As well as an ongoing love for the sea and sailing, the Royal Marines taught Peter a ‘drill’ for almost every eventuality in life. He brought order to all aspects of civilian life, from his career in industry to his belief in the power of routine.
I’m not sure that our family were such compliant widgets when following instructions for:
- “all hands on deck” (meaning come and do the washing up),
- “man the side” (meaning come and welcome visitors in the hallway) or
- “on parade” (meaning be ready to leave the house at a certain time).
…….Loving thy neighbour epitomised his approach to his faith.
He once said: “it’s frightfully easy it seems to me…Christianity is all about love: love one another. That’s all you need to remember.”
………In his words: “There have been many happy chapters in my life in this world.
I am now on my way to meet my Lord and God in the next, and I have no reason to believe there will not be many far more exciting chapters there as well!”