One of our Founding Fathers Just a Drop's very first Project Engineer and Officer Captain Jim Masters MBE, sapper to our President Colonel John Blashford-Snell died of Covid-19 on Sunday 12 April. He was a truly inspirational man who devoted his life to helping others.

Joining the Royal Engineers as a teenager, Jim saw service as a Parachute Engineer in Palestine and later in Cyprus, where he met John Blashford-Snell. They became friends and worked together on expeditions and with charities for almost sixty years.

Jim loved helping people, especially the underprivileged. He ran the Medical Services in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the 70s where he fought the Ebola outbreak. Returning to England, he joined John with the newly founded Just a Drop. As Just a Drop's first Project Engineer, he was a driving force, setting up worthwhile water projects world wide and recruiting other engineers for the charity. In all he worked on over 60 projects helping over 800,000 people have access to safe water and sanitation, transforming lives.

Jim also continued to go on expeditions, taking a grand piano to a remote tribe in Guyana and, after meeting a girl in the Amazon jungle with a cleft palate who was struggling to eat due to the severity of it, raised $4,000 for an operation to correct her damaged face.

He enjoyed an incredible stock of energy, humour and resourcefulness. At 70 he should have retired but insisted on continuing, raising funds for JAD until he was over 90. He also volunteered tirelessly at Yeovil Hospital and in his village community shop until last year.

This remarkable and inspirational man whose work improved the lives of so many will long be remembered and be much missed by his family and many friends