I always looked forward to seeing Barry and he made the effort to come back to the UK as often as he could before his health started to fail. He enjoyed visiting the Institute’s head office and looking at the books in our library. I would treat him to lunch each time he visited at the local pub and his request was always the same - “ham, egg and chips please.” After lunch, he would head straight down to the library in the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth, just a ten-minute car journey away, to undertake research for his next book. Indeed, Barry liked to write and was good at it too. Apart from IIMS handy guides, Barry wrote other books, one of which was Deeds Not Words about the Coastguard, and another called All Hands and the Cook about sailors’ slang expressions.
THE SAD PASSING OF IIMS STALWART CAPTAIN BARRY THOMPSON
The world of marine surveying has been mourning the death of one of its most admired and respected practitioners of recent times with the passing of Captain Barry Thompson HonFIIMS. Barry, who died on 24 September 2020 aged 92 years old, was one of our oldest members and will be known to many people, both in the Institute and in the wider marine world.
IIMS CEO, Mike Schwarz, remembers a much- admired and skilful marine surveyor.
I cannot claim to have known Barry closely, nor indeed for very long - only the past 6 years. But what I learnt immediately upon joining IIMS was the high esteem in which Barry was held by fellow Institute members around the world, the board and, in particular, our members in New Zealand. He reached out to me early in my tenure as CEO and offered unconditional support and was most generous in his words of wisdom and encouragement. From then onwards, Barry and I would communicate often, and we struck up an instant accord and friendship with each other, despite our different backgrounds. Indeed, when I approached him with the concept of publishing a series of handy guides authored by surveying experts, not only was he enthusiastic about the project, but put his name forward as a potential author. He went on to write four handy guides, all of which continue to sell consistently well.
I recall the IIMS Silver Jubilee Awards in 2016. Barry cadged a lift and travelled up with the rest of the IIMS team by luxury coach from Portchester to London. We chatted away about something and nothing to pass the time. He had been nominated in the Outstanding Contribution to the Commercial Ship Marine Surveying Industry Award category. His nomination extract read, “Barry has been a stalwart member of our Institute since the early inception of the IIMS over many years. Despite being in one of the remotest outposts of the IIMS empire, Barry has continuously supported the organisation and was the founder and chairman of our first overseas branch in New Zealand. Barry gained immense respect with the New Zealand Government maritime department. Through Barry’s sage advices he became an adviser to the department enabling them to draft national standards and protocols. He is a Master Mariner, consummate diplomat, author of various books and other journals and manuals and various technical papers.” Needless to say, Barry won the Award and it was richly deserved too. It was an honour to present it to him alongside Sir Alan Massey, the then CEO of the Maritime & Coastguard Agency.
My lasting memories of Barry are that he was a thoroughly decent human being, a courtesy man with an encyclopaedic knowledge of aspects of the marine surveying profession in which he specialised and I always felt easy in his company.
Captain Barry Thompson leaves a lasting legacy and will be missed by all who knew him. Rest in peace Barry.
Mike Schwarz
30 | The Report • December 2020 • Issue 94
Member News
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