Our family would like to thank you for all your support, cards, flowers and messages following Mervyn's recent death. 

Mervyn was a qualified engineer and worked for many years for the Ministry of Defence first in the workshop and then authoring technical manuals and testing equipment at Fort Halstead and Woolwich Arsenal.

Mervyn spent much of his spare time pursuing his passion for photographing tugs and writing about the towage industry. 

Mervyn, more often known as Jack by tug crews, owners, and other tug enthusiasts authored several highly regarded books about the towage industry and  over many years regularly contributed articles for a number of maritime journals and periodicals. 

Mervyn was also an accomplished model boat builder, he built and sailed radio controlled model tugs for his own pleasure and also involved his grandchildren in his hobby - which even included making a remote controlled model duck nicknamed Desmond. 

Over the past few years he experienced poorer health following a number of health issues, and this lead to him reducing both his tug related travels and writing, but he retained a keen interest in all things tug related. 

For Mervyn's thanksgiving service we would respectfully request no floral tributes. However if you would like to make a donation to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute (RNLI) in his memory you can do that via this page. Mervyn was a keen supporter of the RNLI and so we feel he would be pleased to know that others will benefit from donations in support of the lifesaving work undertaken by the RNLI.

Thank you for any donation you feel able to make to this charity.