We recently learned of the death of one of our Founder Members Peter Russell. We publish below an appreciation of his full and active life and his service to the community.

Peter was born in Folkestone in 1934 and when not at sea, lived most of his life in the area including Dymchurch where both Peter and his late wife Sally became well known and enthusiastic members of the community. They took part in many local and national fundraising events including R.N.L.I. lifeboat appeals and the biannual Day of Syn at Dymchurch.

Peter was one of the founder members of the Rotary Club of Romney Marsh formed in 1968 becoming club President for the first time in July 1973.

During the first half of 1982 Peter and Sally took a group of 4 young people on a Rotary Group Study Exchange to Idaho, USA. On his return from the exchange Peter was plunged straight into to being President for a second time.

He always supported the many events that the Rotary Club took part in and when the contact with our friends at Gelsenkirchen Buer Rotary

Club was established Peter was an enthusiastic supporter and visited on many occasions.

He was a strong supporter of ShelterBox and club members remember watching in awe as he along with others tried to assemble the ShelterBox itself for the benefit of many interested members of the public as well as ourselves!

Peter continued to be a very loyal member of the club until his health started to deteriorate in the late 2010’s. However, his loyalty to the club was no better demonstrated than when Covid came along preventing face to face meetings when Peter was one of those who regularly attended meetings on Zoom.

For many years Peter was a pilot for Trinity House taking ships to and from Dungeness to Gravesend. He would often mention that when the shipping lanes were such that the large ships came in close to

Dungeness beach he would go out in the pilot tender and have to scale up a ladder at the side of the ship to get on board and take over as pilot. Oh how Health and Safety would have changed that.

Outside of work he was a very talented artist especially his many marine portrayals of ships and shipping which formed so much of his maritime life. He also had published in 2011 his autobiography “Unplanned Passage” which many of us have read.

When he retired he maintained his maritime interest including being a member of the Maritime Society and a supporter of the Sea Cadets and of course his membership of Rotary International.

We shall miss him.

Peter’s family have asked that any donations should be sent either to the Marine Society and Sea Cadets (MSSC); The Misson to Seafarers or The Rotary Club of Romney Marsh. The links to these pages are shown below

MSSC https://www.ms-sc.org/donate

The Mission to Seafarers https://www.missiontoseafarers.org/donate

Romney Marsh Rotary https://www.romneymarshrotary.co.uk/donate

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