Ratcatcher has been caught.

It is with great sadness I have to report that my old friend 

John "Ratcatcher" Lockwood

  passed away last Saturday.

John "joined" the HBBR when he arrived at Cotswold Water Park with his cathedral hulled powerboat TBA (To Be Advised.) 

John enjoyed a place on the slightly eccentric margins of our group of mild eccentrics and always liked to do things his own way. He was famous for his collection of sheds at home, and there was a very fine line between his shed building and his boat building. 

This was never more apparent than on the infamous 2012 Thames Raid,

the start of which coincided with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Flotilla on the lower reaches of the Thames.  
While the great and the good were processing down the lower reaches passed HRH in the pouring rain, the HBBR were gathering at Lechlade in a similar deluge when John arrived with the latest modifications to TBA. 

Planning to sleep on board, and being a man of some girth, John had rightly surmised that TBA wouldn't be big enough.  He had bought a flat bottomed skiff on e-bay as a prospective replacement but not satisfied with her lines and build quality  he cut it in half and turned it upside down to use as a cuddy.  

Never a man to bring one outboard when he could bring two he then felt that the boat could do with some extra buoyance aft to take the additional weight so he fashioned two sponsons to the transom with an outboard well in the middle. 

The whole thing was capped off with a large piece of poly-tarp tied to some 3x2 with bailer twine.  We liked to call that the Flybridge. 

A fine finishing detail was the Captains Chair which he allegedly stole from the kitchen and cut six inches off the legs. 

  

John was well known as a raconteur, his stories could be endless, but always interesting amusing and best served with a glass of something.  It was only through listening to him that you realised what an interesting life he had had and what an intelligent man he was. 

He was an experienced Sea Kayaker and variously had been a Lorry Driver, Health and Safety Inspector, Department of Agriculture soil sampler ( but never to my knowledge a Ratcatcher) and only once did he slip into the conversation that he had an unfinished thesis somewhere, abandoned some time in the distant past when life, marriage and the important things took precedence.   

One of John's favourite saying to me, a Scotsman, was that a Yorkshire man, like him, was just like a Scotsman with the natural generosity removed. 

In reality John was the most generous of men, always ready to lend a hand, he kept an eye out for everyone and if he saw someone in difficulty he would quietly and politely enquire whether you would like some assistance, and if not would stand off at a distance in case you changed your mind. 

He will be sadly missed by his family and everyone who knew him.  

Photo courtesy of Chris Partridge.