Email received from Ian Whiteman, 17th April, 2017.
Readers will be very sorry to hear of the death of the former head
of the ship division, Nigel Tatham, in December.
There was a memorial service at Midhurst (Sussex) parish church, near where he used to live, on 12th April. Among the attendance of well over 200 were a group from Sea Containers: James and Shirley Sherwood, Maggie Ward, David Benson, David and Marion Collins, Richard Coupland, Malcolm Parrott, and Ian Whiteman.
It was around 1980. I was in Tokyo on one of my regular marketing trips. By coincidence Nigel Tatham was staying at the same hotel as myself. He asked me what I was doing that evening and I said I had arranged to go to a small club where some young friends were having a few drinks and singing to a couple of guitarists. He asked if he might join me. I suggested it might not be up his street, as they were really young, not much more than teenagers, and spoke no English. Instead of putting him off he told me that he welcomed the chance to meet "real Japanese youngsters in a typical Japanese venue". I was a bit unsure, but agreed to take him with me to a little "joint" called "dorenekko" (Japanese for "crazy cat"). A small sign on the wall outside said in English "The crazy cat lives here".
He had a whale of a time. Despite the language barrier he got on tremendously well with all the youngsters in the place, and they seemed to love his typical Englishman's appearance and the fact that he "put on no airs".
I have never ceased to admire him for the revelation of that totally unsuspected side of his personality. He is sorely missed.