My Facebook profile picture and remembering

Engine Room Artificer L J 'Tug' Wilson in 1939.
Courtesy of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum.

I should perhaps explain my unusual Facebook profile picture.



On Christmas Eve 1939, seven Petty Officers from the nearby submarine base at Blyth, went along to The Astley Arms and took part in a raffle. One of them, 'Tug' Wilson of HMS SEAHORSE, won a bottle of Johnnie Walker whisky but, due to go out on patrol, he asked the landlady, Lydia Jackson to hold onto it until he came back.Tragically he didn’t; the Seahorse was destroyed by a mine with the loss of its entire crew. But Lydia Jackson held onto the whisky until she retired 30 years later, when upon investigating what happened to Wilson, she donated it to the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, where it has remained ever since. An account of the sinking can be found here.



With thousands of submariners of all nationalities lying in unmarked, unknown oceanic graves, I really just wanted to 'remember' in my own way.

HMS Seahorse in Portsmouth Harbour on October 14 1933.
Courtesy of the Royal Navy Submarine Museum.

My thanks to culture24.org.uk