We have received belated news of the death of Tony Davidson who died at Brampton in Cumbria in August 2023.
From Mercury he joined the Royal Navy in 1949. In 1952 while serving ashore in HMS Excellent he was selected to be part of the gun carriage team pulling HM King George VI’s coffin at Windsor (his proudest moment, for which he was awarded the Royal Victorian Medal by a young Queen Elizabeth). He was also selected to have his portrait painted by a Royal Academy artist, a likeness that in the 1950s became part of a series of RN recruitment posters. He went on to serve in the RN’s last battleship, HMS Vanguard, the frigates Ulysses and Murray and the ton class minesweepers Stubbington and Yarnton. He commanded the latter. After a spell with HMS Jaguar training gun crews, he ended his 22-year Royal Navy career as a lietenant commander and staff gunnery officer to the RN command in the Gulf. In civvy street he spent over 20 years working in the finance industry and in retirement he resettled in Vancouver to become an actor/extra in films and TV shows. After 19 years in Canada, he returned to the UK and settled at Brampton in Cumbria.