Alleyn Club Yearbook 2017

aircraft carrier used for training, for a trip down to Lisbon in a NATO convoy and then back to UK waters. After that, he joined cruiser HMS Superb which was undergoing a refit at Chatham Dockyard, but as ordinary seamen, both he and Brian Hawkins spent most of their time either chipping old paint off the ship or applying a new coat of paint. Once HMS Superb’s refit was complete, they cruised down to Gibraltar and back. When in Chatham, Michael had been granted permission to have his Velocette motor cycle at the dockyard, so that he could easily commute to his parents in Bromley. He and Brian, riding as a pillion passenger, also explored the Kent countryside within easy reach of Chatham on the motor cycle in the evenings in early summer, occasionally stopping at a pub. Michael was eventually sent north by the navy to HMS Ceres, an on-shore establishment in Wetherby, Yorkshire, for officer training to become a Sub Lieutenant in the Supply and Secretariat branch of the Navy. He passed the officer training but declined to be commissioned, wanting to spend his naval service on the lower deck in the company of the lads, rather than in the somewhat rarified wardroom as an officer. He thought that life on the lower deck would prepare him better after demobilisation for a life in service in the Church of England. After discharge from National Service, Michael returned to Wycliffe Hall in Oxford to continue studying theology, He was ordained at Rochester Cathedral and was then appointed Curate of St Mary’s, Bexley, in 1958, moving on to become Rector at Stanningley, near Leeds in the Diocese of Ripon. He moved on to a parish in Liverpool, before devoting his energies to teaching, for which he moved south to teach at Barton Peveril Grammar School, Eastleigh, near Southampton.

many years, where their daughter also grew up. After retirement, he still conducted the occasional service, such as an evensong service at the parish church in Winford, near Bristol, on ‘Sea Sunday’ when he and Margaret visited his old friend and ‘sea dog’ Brian Hawkins in the 1990s, forty years after National Service together. Later, Michael underwent a hip replacement operation, followed by successful cardiac surgery, but sometime later he was re-admitted to hospital where he sadly died. During his long career with the Church of England, he helped so many people in “finding their way”, which was the subject of his sermon at that Sea Sunday service in Winford. He is survived by wife Margaret and their daughter. An obituary was published by Bristol University, on which this obituary is based. Alan Roy Lincoln Wheatcroft [1941-48] 07.03.1930 – 15.01.2016 Alan Wheatcroft known as Lincoln as a child. The family later moved to Yorkshire, first to Leeds and then to Harrogate. At the age of nine Alan remembered the announcement of the outbreak of the Second World War. In 1940 his father became a manager for the Charrington Brewery in Mile End Lane in East London, which was probably one of the most dangerous places to be during the London Blitz that year. Alan was enrolled for the Goodrich Road Primary School in Dulwich but never went there, because on his first day he became a wartime evacuee and was sent to Devon with his name label and gas was born in Glasgow to Fred and Ethel Wheatcroft, although he was

mask. In Devon, he attended Colyton Primary School and sat and passed the LCC 11+ exam. In 1941, Alan came back to London to Dulwich College with an LCC scholarship, and he was eternally grateful for this opportunity given to him. At Dulwich he was in Marlowe and boarded in Blew House. He also played rugby for the 3rd XV, became a school prefect and was a sergeant-major in the Junior Training Corps. On leaving the College, Alan immediately joined the Royal Artillery as a potential officer. After basic training, he went on to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst in 1949. His first posting, to 20 Anti- Tank Regiment was shortened because he was selected to go to the Royal Military College of Science at Shrivenham to study for a University of London science degree. Like any undergraduate student, Alan played hard but still managed to pass his BSc degree course. After Shrivenham, he had a number of Regimental and Staff appointments while continuing to further his academic, engineering and management skills. He served in the MoD as a Captain responsible for sponsoring the Thunderbird Air Defence Missile system. In 1964 he was posted to the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) in Kent to work on Anti- Tank Guided Weapons. With all this Guided Weapons knowledge, he was selected to go back to Shrivenham as an instructor on the Guided Weapons course of which he was very proud. In recognition of all this experience, Alan became a Chartered Engineer and a member of the Institute of Engineers and Technology. He then became the second-in-command of 14 Regiment and spent two enjoyable years in Malaya, with occasional visits

Michael and wife Margaret lived in Milford-on-Sea, near Lymington, for

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