Michael Tibbs died peacefully at home surrounded by his family on 2 October following a short illness, aged 102.

Michael was born in Ewell, Surrey. His father, Geoffrey, was the Chaplin of HMS Iron Duke, the flagship of the Mediterranean fleet based in Malta, so at a very early age Michael went by sea to Malta with his mother to meet his father. The family returned to England in 1924 and settled in Plymouth where Geoffrey was First Chaplin in HMS Erebus, a training establishment and subsequently the Naval Hospital at Stonehouse. Michael was still able to recite the tram stops on the way to his school in Plymouth at the age of 102!

That school was Mount House. The Headmaster was a retired Indian Army officer so the pupils had a hard regime of exercise, swimming in the cold pool and military drill. The latter was to stand Michael in very good stead when, in 1940, he joined the Navy and was spotted as potential officer material because of the way he drilled his squad of recruits.

In 1932 Geoffrey retired from the navy and was appointed Vicar of Lynchmere in West Sussex. Michael continued at Mount House until he was 13, travelling down to Plymouth by train at the beginning and end of each term. He described the busy life of Lynchmere vicarage in his first book, A Look at Lynchmere. The family was at the centre of village life which in those days was focussed around the Church and he knew everyone in the village.

By 1939 he was at Guildford College trying to pass the exams necessary to become a dentist. In the evenings he was in the Home Guard patrolling the woods and commons searching for German parachutists. He vividly described the red glow in the sky over Portsmouth during the bombing raids at the beginning of the war.

In 1940, having failed his dental exams, he joined the navy, initially as an ordinary seaman on a destroyer, MHS Cottesmore, in the North Sea. He was spotted as being a potential officer and trained at HMS King Alfred (Lancing College) where he met King George VI. He passed his officer training and for the next two years was a midshipman and sub lieutenant on HMS Sheffield, a town class cruiser. He served in the North Atlantic and the Arctic up to North Russia, on Malta convoys and at the North Africa landings. The Sheffield was the flagship at the battle of the Barrent’s Sea. Michael was office of the watch, guiding the ship to dodge salvoes of shells from their much larger German opponents.

In 1943 he volunteered for submarines and spent two years on HMS Tantalus initially back in the Arctic and then in the Far East where they completed the longest patrol by any British Submarine in the Second World War travelling from Freemantle in Australia in an attempt to pick up commandos from operation Rimeau and to sink ships supplying occupied Singapore. They spent 55 days at sea by the end of which they had nothing but biscuits and tinned peaches to eat. They had several near encounters with Japanese destroyers with one depth charge being so close that the lights shattered throughout the submarine.

Michael’s last naval job was second in command of HM Submarine Varne at the age of 24, but by then the European war was ended and so early in 1946 he left the Navy and went to St Peter’s, Oxford where he read Geography.  His original intention was to read English but, when he visited the Mast to discuss the possibility of a place, they were able to offer him one immediately as one of their Goegraphy intake had failed to make it back from the Far East. Michael lept at the opportinuty and spent a very happy 2 ½ years at St Peters. He coxed the first Torpid, was Secretary of the Boat Club and sang in the Choir. He would often say later in life that this was a very important time for him to reflect on what he would do for the rest of his life.

His next adventure was to join the Sudan Political Service which governed the Sudan for the condominium with Egypt. In preparation for this he spent a year learning Arabic in Lebanon, driving over the Middle East as far as Baghdad to learn about Arabic culture. On his leave from the Sudan in 1950 he met Anne Wortley. He proposed two weeks later and the next day returned to Sudan. They married in 1951 and remained devoted to each other for the next 67 years until her death in 2019.

At Independence in 1954, he was District Commissioner of the Messeria District in Kordofan Province, an area the size of Southern England.  They were very sad to leave and made many Sudanese friends whose children and grand-children remained in touch with Michael to his death.

In 1955, back in England with no job and first child on the way, Anne and Michael bought the house next door to Anne’s parents on Lynchmere Ridge. He lived between the two houses for the rest of his life. After some anxious months, Michael got a job with the AA initially in personnel and then as manager of overseas services.  At home he inherited the production of the Lynchmere Pantomime from his father who died in 1957, which he continued for 50 years.

In 1968 Michael was appointed Secretary of the Royal College of Physicians of London, a job he performed until he retired in 1986. At the College he led a modernisation programme which set the standards for postgraduate medical education and laid the foundations for the current standards in examination, oversight and support for the range of medical specialties and sub-specialities which come under the College’s remit.

Retirement in no way meant inactivity for Michael; he spent eight years as Chairman of the Lynchmere Parish Council and was Church Warden of St Peter's Lynchmere. He wrote 4 books (A Look at Lynchmere, Another Look at Lynchmere, Sudan Sunset and Hello Lad Come to Join the Navy?), which were beautifully illustrated by Anne.  They travelled extensively and continued to be actively involved in the Lynchmere Pantomime and the Lynchmere Society.

Following Anne’s death when he was 97, Michael continued to support his family, local organisations and his wide circle of friends. He briefly hit the headlines as the third person in the UK to receive the COVID vaccine in 2020 (first in the South) and was due to receive to the Order of St Richard from the Bishop of Chichester for his lifelong service to the Church in Lynchmere at a ceremony in Chichester Cathedral three days after his death.

He will be remembered by all he met as a kind, intelligent and energetic man with a phenomenal memory of people and the place he loved most, Lynchmere.

His funeral will be held at St Peter's Lynchmere at 12 noon on Thursday 24 October.

Submitted by Christopher Tibbs