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Thread: Tribute to Rory McCreadie.

  1. #1
    Admiral of the Fleet.
    Baron
    England

    Join Date
    Nov 2011
    Location
    Notts
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    22,273
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    Name
    Rob

    Default Tribute to Rory McCreadie.

    This tribute was forwarded to me by Vol.to whom I express my deepest thanks for providing the insertion in this new thread.

    Rob.


    Saturday, September 15, 2018 A Death in the Gaming Community

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    When I got up this morning, I was greeted by an email from Vol Williams. In that email, he told me that Rory McCreadie had died. Rory had been fighting cancer for some time. I hadn't spoken with him recently, but every person handles that fight in their own way and he wanted to be private with his. Vol did tell me that Rory passed away in his wife's arms, just as he had wanted. Rory was an enthusiastic naval gamer, but was more than just that. He was also an expert on the medical side of life at sea, particularly in the earlier part of our genre. Rory had even written a book on the subject, entitled The Barber Surgeon's Mate of the 16th and 17th Century. It's here on Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Barber-Surg.../dp/1874351139 More than just being a book writer, Rory also traveled around presenting the barber surgeon's mate to various history and medical groups. I've looked around the web, and found some pictures of him "in action," so to speak. I've posted them below, but if there are any objections from the owners I will remove them.


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    An important thing to know about Rory was that he believed in doing things the right way. He knew that taking shortcuts in research would only lead to faulty results. More importantly, he knew those faulty results would be picked up by people later and used to justify their own shortcuts. This was an area he did not compromise on. This meant that he could sometimes come across as a bit brusque when he thought someone whose work he respected had fallen short. In fairness though, he held himself to the same high standards he held others to. So, until the next sailing ship post, the blog is in mourning. When a ship is in mourning, her yardarms are arranged cockbilled, like you see in the drawing at the beginning of this post. I don't know Rory's religious affiliation if any, and would not have asked it of him. I think, though, that given the era he specialized in, he would know this passage from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer: WE therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption, looking for the resurrection of the body, (when the Sea shall give up her dead,) and the life of the world to come, through our Lord Jesus Christ; who at his coming shall change our vile body, that it may be like his glorious body, according to the mighty working, whereby he is able to subdue all things to himself.

    Requiescat in pace.

    Brian Weathersby.
    Last edited by Bligh; 10-10-2018 at 03:14.
    The Business of the commander-in-chief is first to bring an enemy fleet to battle on the most advantageous terms to himself, (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy, as expeditiously as possible); and secondly to continue them there until the business is decided.

  2. #2

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    Rory and me had different ways of looking at modeling, getting to discuss in various aspects which does not mean that I miss his contribution in the various forums where he published his work. A work that if it was not the best in terms of painting we could say that yes it was one of the best in rigging and historical accuracy. You could tell he enjoyed making each one of his boats and that's enough to honor him. As I said on Facebook, a real pity that the terrible disease that is cancer has not allowed him to enjoy that last battle he was preparing with such care. I'm sure his friends will play for him.


  3. #3

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    RIP "Devsdoc"

    As I recall he had extensive fleets of fully rigged Langton's. I recall he was not pleased that Ares went with 1/1000 scale. A fine modeler and contributor.

  4. #4

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    Thank you Rob for posting this.

    Another side of Rory not apparent to the on-line community was his friendship. When Rory decided you were his friend, there were no limits to his attention. In my case it began with tentative suggestions to correct my rigging. Then I find one day in the mail Rod Langton's "Guide to Assembly, Painting & Rigging of Napoleonic Naval Models in Scale of 1:1200" with a friendly "You need this!" card from Rory. Wow! But this was only the beginning. I would get a lovely handmade nautically themed card made by his Lady Jane every birthday and Christmas. My wife loves them. In his travels to re-enactments, museums, rummage sales, etc., he would pick up books he thought I might like and send them to me. On the boards, blogs and FB group pages, if he perceived that anyone was criticizing or denigrating any of my work he would attack and defend, sometimes to my discomfort. But I understood and appreciated that he was loyally defending a friend.

    Sometimes he could come across a bit gruff but he had a huge heart and would do anything to encourage a newcomer to the hobby. But he felt strongly that folks in the age of sail hobby should be in it for the love of the modeling, gaming and genre, and not for personal monetary gain i.e. free advertising on the boards and Facebook group pages. That is the source of the friction he had with Julian. This was the only thing he and I disagreed on.

    Devsdoc did have a large collection of 1:1200 Napoleonic ships in six fleets. 1) British 2) French 3) Russian high seas 4) Russian in-shore 5) Swedish high seas 6) Swedish in-shore
    He also had some excellant 1/1200 gaming terrain that he posted on this site. He finally ran out of room to store any more in this scale. He agonized over several months whether to switch to 1/2400 scale until I finally sent him the smaller ships Gunner had sent me. After that he was determined to build every ship at Trafalgar for a huge game on Trafalgar day, his birthday, this month. He was well into it when he was diagnosed with the cancer. I think the goal kept him going. So sad he didn't stay just another month. So nice that the game is being dedicated to Rory.

    Vol

  5. #5

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    He always had a correct relationship with me, he did not really agree with what I do because he understood that I do not live the hobby of modeling, but it was his way of seeing things. He did not know my life and my personal situation either, so I could not blame him for anything. Moreover, he also bothered to write me a personal email to tell me what changes I should make in my rig to differentiate different nationalities.

  6. #6

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    I just wanted to drop a really nice photo of Rory here.
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