A Profile of John Paton

IT is easy to picture John Paton in his career as a Naval Officer. When we meet at The Victoria Institute he is looking dapper in jeans and a jacket, with pocket handkerchief and scarf neatly in place. His career choice can probably be blamed on his mother reading the newspaper every morning but more of that later!

An only child, John describes his upbringing as ‘wonderful! I was spoilt rotten.’ His parents met in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) in 1945. His father had gone to Africa as a young man and worked for the African Lakes Corporation in Nyasaland (now Malawi) and stayed there till the early 50’s. His mother was a teacher in Walthamstow and, at the end of World War II, she went to Africa to work in Northern Rhodesia. Meanwhile John’s father, having been involved in the war in Abyssinia, Egypt and Palestine, was demobbed and travelling back when he stopped off at a small town in Northern Rhodesia. By chance there was a dance being held that night so John’s father went along, met his mother and they fell in love! John was born two years later but his parents ‘felt the wind of change was coming and decided to leave. My father was an insurance assessor and, through family connections, got a job in Truro.’ He ran the office and became an expert in agricultural machinery and his mother returned to teaching. ‘My father had picked up a love of literature and music along the way so I lived in a house full of classical music and books. Every room had a wall of books and I was bought a book to read almost every week.’ He was sent to the local prep school and then on to Truro School. His mother bought a piano and said he should learn. ‘I was introduced to Beethoven by the age of 6 and playing Chopin at 10’.

It was in Truro that John developed his love of sailing. ‘My mother was an extraordinary woman who’d been brought up as a Methodist. She was a strong lady and what she said should happen usually did! We used to dread her reading the paper because she’d find something and run with it.’ One day she read that a retired general had taught himself to sail at the age of 60 at a sailing school in Bosham and she decided that would be good for John. Despite the fact that neither of his parents could sail, they all went to Bosham for a two-week sailing course. John loved it so much that he joined the local sailing club as soon as they got home. He spent a great deal of his time there, ‘which is probably why I didn’t do very well at school’ although he was also ‘slightly dyslexic’. His father bought him an Enterprise racing dinghy so he spent most of his time on the water.

There were other reasons, over and above his love of sailing and the sea, why he joined the Royal Navy in 1966. The opportunity to travel, the ability to specialize and a very thorough training which enabled you to get a ‘ticket’ on various classes of boat- all appealed to him. He completed basic training in Dartmouth and his first posting was to HMS Torquay as the Diving Officer. Every frigate had a diving team who were sub-aqua specialists trained to search for limpet mines and also do minor repairs while at sea.

Like my mother, the Navy is very good at deciding what you’ll do next! There is a very intense scrutiny and selection procedure going on all the time and they decided I should be a Gunnery Officer so off I went to train. My next job was Gunnery Officer on HMS Achilles

‘Like my mother, the Navy is very good at deciding what you’ll do next! There is a very intense scrutiny and selection procedure going on all the time and they decided I should be a Gunnery Officer so off I went to train. My next job was Gunnery Officer on HMS Achilles.’ At this point ‘I had met the lovely Nell who was a Wren Officer-although we in fact met in Falmouth at a sailing club. We got married quite quickly and that sort of changed my perception of the Navy a bit because going off on a long deployment overseas seemed a rather crazy way to conduct married life, especially to Nell who was so good at keeping the home fires burning.’ He obviously remains devoted to her after 50 years of marriage.

So, John decided that he should try and move to submarines because they only went to sea for 6 weeks at a time and with squadrons of them all over the world, he could travel with Nell but only be away from her for short periods. His request to join the Submarine Service coincided with the UK’s decision to build the Polaris deterrent nuclear fleet of submarines so new submariners were in heavy demand. He was posted to Faslane in HMS Revenge to take part in the Cold War tracking of enemy activity while trying to avoid being tracked themselves!

Their first daughter, Joanna, was born in 1973 while they were in Scotland and Ruth two years later. Several postings followed – Officer in Command of Nuscott a new submarine simulator: Second in Command HMS Odin and a return to the surface fleet with HMS Cleopatra as Operations Officer. By now the family were living in Emsworth. Nell and John had decided early in their married life that the family would stay put while John sailed the seven seas. Nell ran the home(s) and looked after the girls while John weekended when he could.

When the Falklands War broke out in 1982 John was on long leave. It was just completely unthinkable to stay on leave and, voluntarily cutting his short, he was sent to Chatham to be Second in Command of HMS Falmouth – ‘a sad, rusty, old ship which was visibly listing to one side, that was on the Reserve Ship list and theoretically ready to go!’ It took them about four weeks to get it shipshape and they slowly crawled their way down to Ascension Island. Once there, they were initially dispatched to the Caribbean to be a guard ship in the hurricane season but returned to the Falklands to be part of the ‘ring of steel’ around the islands, under constant threat of an Argentinian counterattack. They returned home eventually via South America and the Panama Canal – and exciting trip home for John as half his crew, including the Captain had dysentery. “I just couldn’t be ill; driving the ship home but it all caught up with me once home. I got an auto-immune reaction to the dysentery causing acute arthritis – basically inflammation in all the soft tissues. I was extremely ill for 6 months. By then we were living in South Mundham so the RN allowed me to be treated locally at the Bognor Regis Memorial Hospital!’ Back in service in 1983 saw him return to the Falklands as Staff Officer Operations on HMS Broadsword managing a squadron of ships.

John’s first command ‘which you were always longing for was in HMS Dulverton, a lovely modern mine hunter. We were deployed to the Gulf during the build up to the first Gulf War in 1988 to patrol the Straits of Hormuz for mines, either using traditional minesweeping techniques or exploding the mines using two small remote-controlled submarines.

John’s first command ‘which you were always longing for was in HMS Dulverton, a lovely modern mine hunter. We were deployed to the Gulf during the build up to the first Gulf War in 1988 to patrol the Straits of Hormuz techniques or exploding the mines using two small remote-controlled submarines. This was of course when we were helping Saddam Hussein fight the Iranians. We were all petrified of nerve gas attack- they were quite frightening times.’ On a lighter note, on their return journey John requested to visit the island of Kos for good PR reasons where a previous Dulverton had sunk in World War II. They were greeted like royalty by the islanders and John was paraded around the town like a visiting dignitary by the Greek Orthodox priest who introduced him to everyone.

When he got back the decision was taken to give John some shore time – he had been at sea now a good number of years and the powers that be thought it was time for him to take a couple of jobs at home before taking on another command at sea. The first role he took was a new one responsible for amalgamating the RN Schools of Management and Leadership based on Whale Island in Portsmouth. John had become very interested in education and had started an Open University BSc course which would lead to a Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) and a Masters. So this role was very attractive. It involved teaching all levels of seniority and was followed by a post at Greenwich at the RN Staff College where he ran the junior staff course training 40 new officers every two months.

The family by now had moved to the Hornet in Chichester both girls having left Bishop Luffa School and were now at University. For John, a world outside the Navy seemed to beckon. ‘I felt the aim after Command was to become an Admiral and I was not sure I could achieve that, so I decided to take advantage of the Golden Bowler scheme. It was designed to reduce the size of the Navy by giving very generous retirement payments to those who opted for them, on top of the pension. However, the Navy refused to let me go but against their better judgement in 1996 I retired. He had bought a 20-foot Gaff Rigged Cutter and wanted to sail more regularly, and to share life with Nell more, but he still wanted to work. He approached Chichester College to pursue a teaching career. They had one unfilled teaching slot in Operations Management ‘and I thought, well I’ve been operating ships all my life, I can do that! Of course it is actually quite a different thing, so I went back to learning a lot! But I loved it -the courses in adult education are wonderful – I’d have builders, developers, care sector workers – a huge variety of people and we’d talk about Operations Management! A number of Chartered Institute of Management courses were run at Chichester and I just kept adding those to my role too. I loved it but it was ridiculously hard work.’ In 2000 he moved into Higher Education teaching general management to conservationists at Chichester University and accountants at Solent University. He was also by now teaching for the Open University.

Around the same time he relays ‘I was dragged into the National Maritime Museum in by an old Admiral I knew and a neighbour of mine both of whom were involved and thought I could help. A project was started with Heritage Lottery Fund money to analyse how many historic ships there were around the coast that would be of interest but were unknown. I had a lovely time helping to set up a National Register of Historic Ships and getting most of the major maritime museums involved. I spent about three years going around the UK visiting these ships. The major problem was of course funding for them so I started to pick up expertise in how to raise money.’

It was in 2004 that Nell and John moved to Ford Road in Arundel, where they found a property which they could redesign to their satisfaction. It included a beautiful brick shed which was developed into a studio where John could pursue his favorite second career as a potter. ‘It was another attraction of Arundel – I love the artistic bohemian characteristic of the place. The Gallery Trail was a wonderful thing for me because I could make pots all year and then show them on the Trail.’

As well as pottery and his four grandchildren, John also found time to be a Trustee of Home Start for six years and a Governor of ACE School for three. He is also Secretary of ‘Between the Lines’ which he claims is the ‘best book club in town. We formed in 2007 and we meet every 6 weeks, read lots of books and consume vast quantities of wine.’

Now however The Victoria Institute absorbs most of his spare time. His passion for the arts and culture is the driving force behind his leading involvement in the restoration of the Institute on Tarrant Street. He became Chair of the Management Committee in 2014 and two years later established its charity status and formed a Trustee Board, of which he is also Chair. He has worked tirelessly since not just to refurbish The Vic but also to try to turn it into a useful cultural centre for the town. A great deal has already been achieved. The latest transformation of the Red Room into an attractive, light and airy space to be used as a theatre, cinema and for all manner of activities will hopefully be complete by the end of June- fingers crossed and if there is enough funding. Money for the cinema is outstanding but, at the time of writing, there was still some £8000 to get to their target of £54,562 on the Spacehive crowdfunding website www.spacehive.com/revitalising-victoria

The space on the first-floor front of the building is already used for Pilates, dance, a choir, a Church and of course the Festival displays. The Red Room will also house Drip Action Theatre as it has always done.

But plans go much further than that. John wants the Vic to develop into a thriving community centre hosting all manner of events from private parties to world-class exhibitions.

But what is really, really necessary is to get the building up to a state where it’s making enough money to go out and be a production house. At the moment we’re a receiving house really – we supply the space for others to run things. We want to get to a state where we can organise specific educational activities, summer schools for children, half-term events, theatre, dance, plays – that sort of thing. As always though raising money is the key.

‘But what is really, really necessary is to get the building up to a state where it’s making enough money to go out and be a production house. At the moment we’re a receiving house really – we supply the space for others to run things. We want to get to a state where we can organise specific educational activities, summer schools for children, half-term events, theatre, dance, plays – that sort of thing. As always though raising money is the key.

John is quite exhausting to talk to as he is full of ideas and his passion for The Vic is tangible. ‘It has become a passion because I really believe we need a cultural hub – there are so many advantages to it for everyone. If we could get up to Gallery status we could get loans from Pallant House for example for exhibitions; we could run a lecture about it and have actors from Chichester come and talk; and then you could do the same thing for young people too. Art is a wonderful leveller and a wonderful escape.

There is a long way to go to achieve the vision – a cultural centre, a creative powerhouse and a community centre all in one. As John concludes in The Vic’s planning document:

‘A bottom line in all this is the idea of creating a modern and inspirational place in the centre of a small town which attracts outside interest and curiosity and where, at the same time, people of all ages and abilities can connect, learn, enjoy, serve and play is a fundamental requirement for communities like Arundel in the 22nd Century.’

If anyone can achieve that at The Vic, John can.