A SAILOR from South Tyneside is to receive recognition for his illustrious Merchant Navy career and tireless voluntary work.
Captain John Murray will be bestowed the prestigious Merchant Navy Medal at Trinity House in London later this year.
Its fitting recognition for his decades of service on the ocean waves.
But its also acknowledgement for his work as an active and committed trustee with Trafalgar Aged Mariners Homes over many years.
And in a fitting twist of fate, he will receive his gong on his 88th birthday Monday, November 26.
Sadly, Captain Murrays wife, Marion, died a few weeks ago, and he will be accompanied at the ceremony by his daughter, Sara Murray-McDonald.
He said: I am surprised because this came out of the blue.
I am delighted too, and I will be accepting it on behalf of the volunteers I work alongside at Trafalgar Homes.
Captain Murray, of Moorfield Gardens, Cleadon, was born in Seaham Harbour, County Durham, and on leaving school became an errand boy.
In March, 1941, he took up an apprenticeship with R.S. Dalgliesh of Newcastle and sailed with that company until 1943, when his ship SS Wentworth was torpedoed by a German U-boat in the North Atlantic.
After the war, he achieved his first command as skipper of a whaling vessel, collecting harpooned and buoyed whale carcasses, delivering them to a factory ship for processing.
In 1974, he was master of MV La Loma, the largest oil bulk ore vessel in the world at the time.
Over the decades, he worked for a number of companies, including Moss Tankers, Cunard, Brocklebank and Buries Markes, ending his career as a marine superintendent.
His final command was the Norman Lady, a prototype of the spherical tank gas carriers also the largest of its type in the world at the time.
But retirement did not lead to a life of pipe and slippers.
He was appointed by the Lord Chancellor as a nautical assessor, and in that role inquired into the loss of the MV Derbyshire.
In recent years, he has also been instrumental in establishing a Tyne and Wear branch of the Merchant Navy Association.
And in November 2010, he represented the Merchant Navy at a Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
Capt Murray added: Hopefully this award will help raise the profile of the Merchant Navy.One of the aims of the association is to maintain public and official awareness of the role it plays in the life of Britain in peace and in war.
