It was a great pleasure to meet Richard Husk and his wife Anne at the Wivenhoe Memories Exhibition on Saturday 4th April 2015, the day we were launching the Wivenhoe History community archive.
Until just a week earlier, when Peter Green called me, I hadn’t realised there were any descendants of the Husk family still around. It seems that Peter Green is still in touch with Richard Husk, or Dick as he has been called throughout his distinguished naval career, commanding submarines including nucleur subs, and it was he that let Dick know about the launch of the Wivenhoe History archive.
Dick joined the Royal Navy after leaving college in 1951 and rose to the rank of Commodore. He was awarded the CBE in 1984 for control of submarine operations in the Falklands and the Atlantic. For some peculiar tradition, although he climbed to the rank of Commodore, he is still called a Captain.
As a boy, he remembers playing in the shipyard both before the war and then during the war when it was taken over by Vospers for war-related work. His father sold the shipyard in 1946 and the family left Wivenhoe in 1947. These days he lives at Hatfield Broadoak, near Stansted airport.
Peter Green fondly remembers playing with Richard, the name he was known by in those days, in and around Husk’s Yard.
For more about Husk’s Yard, click here
Footnote: According to John Collins of the Nottage Maritime Institute, in the Navy, the officer in command of a ship is always the captain whatever his substantive rank. It dates back to before Tudor times when there were only Captains, Lieutenants (in lieu of the tenant, or holder of the commission of the ship) and Admirals. Promotion was simply by means of becoming captain of bigger and more prestigious ships; and Admirals commanded several ships.
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