Peter Low 1939 -2024
by Flicky Low
Peter was born in Chelsea in 1939 shortly before the outbreak of WWII. He and his sister were packed off to live with their grandmother in Barton St David, a village in Somerset. His father arranged to have running water in the cottage rather than use the garden well. His parents both came from army backgrounds but as he rode on the back of his Scottish nanny’s bike, he was heard to sing “I want to be a sailor.”
Following school in Dorset, it was no surprise that Peter enrolled in the Merchant Navy as an apprentice with Shell tankers. He also joined the Royal Naval Reserve and spent six months on basic training. He then joined the New Zealand Shipping Company, spending some years at sea and he met his future wife, Flicky, somewhere near Tahiti.
She was travelling the long way home from teaching in Africa.
These were happy years but he had a whim to be a submariner so he went to sea with the Navy for ten months. His first posting was on a helicopter support ship, a converted tank landing craft where he said his training was to wave large ping-pong bats. He then qualified as a Reserve submariner and he remembered his days beneath the surface with great pleasure. For many years he was attached to Northwood Headquarters.
Having passed the exams to be a Master Mariner he decided to come ashore, married and joined the shipping industry in London which was newly developing containerisation. Overseas Containers Limited (OCL) was a fledgling company whose services were inaugurated in1969 with the first fleet operating between UK and Australia.
In 1980 life changed when Peter was sent to Johannesburg as the owner representative for what was then South Africa, including Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana and also Malawi. This was an amazing time for the family, now with three young sons. With a licence they could visit Soweto, where Flicky taught. They all had memories of the tin-roofed church in Alexandra, unaccompanied hymns sung in four languages at once and on Palm Sunday being told that Jesus processed and so would they. They left the church to walk through the dusty narrow streets, bringing out staring children while the vicar, Horace, who had been a long-distance lorry driver, raced up and down encouraging everyone to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers”. What might have been money for church flowers was used to buy water for people transported away.
After three years, there were six more years back home in East Sheen before Peter was asked to go to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as company representative for the Red Sea. He enjoyed the job but Flicky found it difficult with the restrictions on women. There was the added interest of diving in the Red Sea, learning to windsurf, camping and exploring in the desert and the experience of the first Gulf War.
Luckily the next posting was to Dubai, much smaller in those days and a wonderful change from Saudi, which enabled them to visit most of the Middle Eastern region. Peter then worked for the Dubai Ports Authority as they wanted experienced people to help with their programme of development and to give backup to young nationals. This was followed by six years responsible for writing the Port’s business and strategic plan. The final eighteen months were spent planning a new offshore island as Jebel Ali Port was expanding rapidly and was fast running out of capacity.
Peter chose to retire in 2005 and drove home from Dubai not through Iran as originally planned but through Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Greece. He was excited about retirement and made the most of it with much travelling. Golf was his favourite sport and transport was on his classic motorbike known as ‘Uhuru’, meaning ‘freedom’ in Swahili, until well into his 80s. He loved life in East Sheen but also visiting his sons and grandchildren who at one stage were in Cape Town, Dubai and Shanghai or Hong Kong.
Through all his life and retirement Peter was never one to sit still. He loved gardening and tended the allotment with enthusiasm. Opera and music, research into the family tree, the Royal Geographical Society, various associations and voluntary work both on board and as a trustee of the River Thames Boat Project kept him happily busy.
The week before Peter’s diagnosis of Motor Neurone Disease, he was at a camp by the Zambezi in Zambia and managed to be tipped in as he was disembarking from a canoe, still smiling. He approached his illness calmly and with so much grace with never a word of “why me?” or bitterness. Peter was a good listener and always had time to help when it was needed.
When in his final year Peter had a short stay in hospital, he was allowed out to celebrate his April birthday at home for lunch and tea with his family. The following week was Easter Sunday and during the long weekend a younger doctor told us he would not be allowed out at all. Peter was really miserable to hear that and was desperate to come to the Easter Service at All Saints and hear the choir again. Realising it was probably his last Easter, we stole him, a strong son lifting him into a wheelchair then into the car. He enjoyed the service, lunch with the family, was returned to hospital and a kind nurse sneaked him back to bed. We all felt better and happy to have had him cheerfully with us. The community of All Saints was most welcoming, kind and thoughtful and greatly appreciated by Peter and the family.
He died on 11th October 2023 as a kind and brave man.