C. H. Lightoller and Richmond Slipways

At the end of the war an elderly mariner, who had rescued 130 troops from Dunkirk, moved to East Twickenham and set up a boatyard at 1 Ducks Walk, opposite the site of the old Tudor palace. Richmond Slipways as it was called, mostly repaired police boats - a sedate life for Commander Charles Lightoller, a man whose career was crammed with adventure. He had gone to sea at 13, survived four shipwrecks, been marooned on a desert island, mined gold in the Klondike, rammed and sunk a German U-boat with his destroyer in the first world war and been active in the second. The Commander passed away peacefully in his boatyard just before Christmas 1952.