Alec Woods
Monmouth RC President
Welsh Rowing Vice President
A TRIBUTE TO ALEC WOODS by Nigel Richards
ST PETER’S CHURCH, DIXTON – FRI 14 OCT 2011
Introduction
One of Alec’s close friends has described him as an unusual,
old-fashioned, generous, kind, amazing, brave and shy person.
Oh yes, and with a healthy disregard for bureaucracy.
Our daughter Helen came over from New Zealand and visited Alec
in July. Helen asked him to
tell us about his 30 year career in Shell and what he had done.
We leaned forward to hear his learned reply which came in a
serious low voice: ‘as little as possible!’
There are so many things to say about Alec.
But, today, I must be brief.
And I will stick as far as possible to his two abiding passions
in life.
Cars
The first was his cars.
As a very young boy, his God-father gave him a small toy car that
he could pedal around the garden of his parents’ house in Oxfordshire.
He absolutely loved this car and it almost certainly ignited his
life-long passion.
His brother lent him the money to buy his first car – I think
it was a Morgan. Three of his more exotic vintage cars later on were a
Bugatti, an Italian Isotta Fraschini and a Fergus Mosquito.
When Christine was about 13 years
old, Alec drove her in the Isotta, which was a very long-bodied,
open-top, vintage Italian car, from her school in England to Germany,
where her parents were stationed. He
certainly had style and it was a journey she has never forgotten.
I once drove with Alec in Ireland.
It was just over ten years ago and we had gone across to do some
research into his Irish Quaker family history.
Alec was driving us in his nippy Peugeot 306 on the M1 between
Dublin and Belfast when we were flagged down by a police car.
A policeman approached our car on foot. ‘Sir’, he said very
politely to Alec, ‘you were travelling at 95 mph and you must pay a £50
fine’. Alec duly handed over
the money. But as we were
driving away, slightly more slowly this time, Alec turned to me and
said: ‘That policeman had it absolutely wrong – I was doing at least
110!’
During his time in Brunei with Shell, he owned two vintage
cars, a Rolls Royce and a Bugatti.
He decided to sell the Rolls, he found a buyer and a price and
collection date were agreed upon.
Unfortunately, the buyer came back from leave, only to find his
new car in a thousand pieces on Alec’s spare room floor.
On another occasion, when Alec was working in Turkey, he and
Kevin Karney who is here today and was a colleague of Alec’s in Shell,
decided that it was time they had an Alfa Romeo.
So Alec flew to Milan, collected
the new car and drove it back to SE Turkey – a distance of several
thousand miles across some pretty inhospitable terrain.
Alec then sold the car to Kevin who was promptly presented with
an import tax bill of twice the value of the car. There then followed
some complicated manouevres by Kevin and Alec which involved crossing
the border into Syria, acquiring a visa there in an extremely unorthodox
way, and nearly being shot at by the border guards on return to Turkey.
But this did at least save having to pay any import duty.
Before we get to Alec’s second passion, we need to make a brief
mention of the more serious bits – his wartime service and his time with
Shell.
WW II
Alec was called up In September 1940 at the age of 18.
After some rather dull postings, he volunteered for airborne
forces. He battled his way through parachute training
and gained the coveted red beret which lies on his coffin today.
He was then posted as a young sapper to 1st Parachute
Squadron, Royal Engineers, in North Africa.
On arrival at the squadron’s tented camp in the desert, one of
his new comrades asked Alec what his initials ‘F A’ stood for.
For absolutely no understandable reason, Alec replied: ‘Ferguson
Augustus.’ To which the
reply came: ‘No problem, you’ll be Gus then’.
And, to this day, that is the only name by which he was known by
all his 1st Para Squadron friends.
Because he could drive, Alec became a Jeep driver.
In September 1944 when the squadron took part in the famous
Allied airborne assault at Arnhem.
Alec landed in a glider with his Jeep.
After three days of fighting, Alec was captured only a few yards
from what became known as the ‘bridge too far’ over the River Rhine.
He was taken in a cattle truck to a Prisoner of War camp near
Koblenz in Germany. In the
next eight months, he managed to escape three times.
The first escape wasn’t very successful and he was quickly
captured after being discovered hiding in a goods train.
He was then moved to another camp.
Before long, he and two companions escaped again.
It was on a cold November night.
They walked through dense forest until they came to a very wide
river. They found a boat,
which leaked, but with Alec’s knowledge of boats, they managed to fix
the leak and cross the river.
They then set off on foot again and had covered several miles
before, unluckily, they walked into an ambush.
After this escapade, Alec was put into solitary confinement.
To keep himself sane, he made chess men out of the mud in his
cell.
As the war was ending, Alec and his friends were moved to a
third PoW camp. Things were
getting chaotic as the Russians approached from the east.
Alec was not well.
But his comrades weren’t going to abandon him.
Four of them disguised themselves as Red Cross medics, put Alec
on a stretcher and, in broad daylight, carried him straight past the
German guards and out of the camp.
His third escape attempt had been successful.
They headed west in the hopes of meeting the American army. Not
many miles later, and walking along a road, they suddenly heard a plane
approaching. The four
stretcher bearers dropped Alec like a stone and dived into the ditch
beside the road - leaving poor Alec lying in the middle of the road and
at the mercy of the attacking aircraft.
Luckily it was an American plane so no damage was done.
Arnhem Veterans
In September 1994, at the age of 72, Alec returned by parachute
to Arnhem as part of the 50th Anniversary Commemorations.
And, as a member of the Arnhem Veterans Parachute Team, he
continued to parachute there every year until the age of 78 in 2000.
He carried on as the team’s treasurer and main organizer and he
oversaw the raising of over £250,000 for various charities.
Shell
Before we get to Alec’s second big passion, we must mention his
time with Shell. After the
war, he went up to Magdalene College Cambridge.
He took up rowing and rowed twice at Henley in the Magdalene
boat.
After Cambridge, he did three years in Iran and Iraq with
Anglo-Iranian Oil – the forerunner of BP.
He then switched to Shell where he became an oilfield production
manager. Because he was a
bachelor, he volunteered to spend his subsequent working career abroad
in places such as Brunei, Indonesia, Venezuela, Oman and, as head of
operations, in Turkey, where he presided over some 1,500 oil wells.
Alec was a production man, working at the ‘coal-face’ with
responsibility for getting oil from the well-head to the oil terminal.
Two things stood out about the way he operated:
he was fearless about his own safety and he had a total disregard
for any diktat on high that compromised the needs of his staff.
This meant that he was adored by those who worked around him; but
it also meant that he never reached the level in Shell that he deserved.
He is remembered in Oman for the time when an oil well was on
fire. Alec forbade the
firefighters to go near the well because they were married with
families. But he himself
approached the raging well and managed to close the appropriate valve
and extinguish the fire.
Kevin Karney has also told us that, one day when they were in
Turkey, Alec noticed that he was missing from their little community. He
knew Kevin was not away on duty. He came around to his apartment and
seeing his car outside, knew something must be wrong. He just kicked in
the locked front-door, and found him unconscious and fading towards
death from dysentery. Alec slapped him awake, got a doctor and he
survived.
Alec was extremely fond of good-looking women.
In Venezuela, he met one of the loves of his life - no details
were ever disclosed. There
was, however, a painting of a beautiful South American woman hanging
discreetly behind a door in his cottage in Llandogo.
There is also a lady now living in Sussex, who we believe he
nearly married after the war.
She wanted to be here today, but sadly wasn’t able to make it.
During his time with Shell, Alec somehow found time to organize
and row in regattas in Singapore, Saigon and Brunei.
He won the Far East Championship in fours and pairs.
But it wasn’t all plain sailing.
He was once out sculling in Brunei when he saw a floating log.
Then he noticed that it had eyes. It was a crocodile!
Luckily he managed to paddle off without falling in.
Rowing
Alec retired from Shell in 1978 and came to Llandogo.
He found the Wye Valley absolutely stunning and he was determined
to get seriously involved in vintage cars.
But he popped down to Monmouth Rowing Club one day and that was
it. Within a few days, he
was off to the Ghent Regatta in Belgium and the cars didn’t get much of
a look-in after that. Rowing
had now become centre stage in his life - his second and biggest
passion.
And, as most of you here this morning know, he committed
himself heart and soul to Monmouth Rowing Club and to Welsh Rowing.
Some ten years ago, when his eyesight was failing, Alec moved
into Riverside Park so that he could
live right by the river and opposite the clubhouse.
Alec expressed the wish that he wanted to be buried here in
Dixton Church close to the river.
But, rowers beware - Alec will be watching you!
Finale
So, there we are.
Here was a man who gave so much and took so little.
His achievements were immense, yet he was modest and
self-effacing to a fault.
In his final days, John Jenkins was a regular and welcome
visitor to his bedside. Only
a couple of weeks ago, when Alec was extremely frail, John said to Alec:
‘We’ve got the Penarth Regatta tomorrow, Alec, and we’re putting in a
four. You’ll be stroke and
I’m at number two. Are you
up for it?’ A few seconds
later, Alec replied: ‘Yes, I’m up for it.
But why have you put me down for stroke?’
His dry sense of humour and good manners never left him.
He was, quite simply, a most remarkable man.