The Association has learned of the death of Lt Ian Ashton Shuttleworth RN on 23 May 2015.
From Records
RN General List BRNC Dartmouth Sep 1962
HMS Salisbury 1963
BRNC Dartmouth 1964
4th Year Courses 1965
HMS Daring 1966
RAF Linton-on-Ouse 1968
FAA Commando Helicopter Pilot (705,707 & 848 Squadrons) 1968
Retired invalided July 1970
A family funeral will be followed later in the year by a Memorial Service. Details to follow.
© Peter Hore
Ian Shuttleworth, who has died aged 71, despite being confined to a wheelchair for 46 years, enriched the lives of all he touched with his courage, determination, cheerfulness and refusal to be sorry for himself, and brought the pleasure of sailing to disabled people.
Shuttleworth learned to sail on the Solent as an 11-year old, and when he was introduced in 1978 to the newly-founded Jubilee Sailing Trust (JST) which aimed to facilitate sailing for the disabled, he threw his support into the organisation. Shuttleworth lent his body and his wheelchair to testing new equipment for the sail training ships Lord Nelson and Tenacious.
As importantly, as a fund-raiser for the JST over the next 35 years, Shuttleworth generated millions of pounds for the Trust. He never rattled a bucket, but thought of fund-raising ideas worth thousands of pounds, sums which he generally achieved, and he never accepted expenses for his ceaseless efforts, even though he had to drive to Southampton for many meetings over the years. Instead he was rewarded by being made a trustee 1982-2012 and later vice-chairman 1997-2012 of the trust.
In 2010 Shuttleworth completed a sky-dive, raising thousands of pounds for the JST. Characteristically he wrote: ‘I am sure you will be thinking how can someone be stupid enough to jump out of an aeroplane especially if it is still in flying condition? Well, I was a naval helicopter pilot some years ago and was not issued with a parachute, so it was more than a little interesting. I have now done the jump from around 13,000ft, but please keep your donations coming for this unique charity and many thanks for all your generous donations so far’.
He was modest about these achievements which were not publicly acknowledged.
Ian Ashton Shuttleworth was born into a military family: his father was a lieutenant-commander in the Royal Navy and later Deputy Lieutenant and then High Sheriff of Derbyshire, and all five of his brothers became officers in the army, the Royal Navy or the Royal Marines. He was educated with his twin, Richard, at Seacourt school in Southsea, Desmoor prep in Surrey, and at the Nautical College, Pangbourne, and both won scholarships to the Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth in 1962.
At school the cry ‘You, Shuttleworths!’ was often heard and it seemed that the twins were in trouble more often than others: despite their closeness they determined to be individuals and take responsibility for their own misdemeanours. At Dartmouth, however, where in uniform they looked even more alike, they sometimes swapped places, generally so one or other could accept a social engagement, and only once were they caught. Staff officers saw the funny side, but the twins were jointly punished.
They were not separated until the Navy appointed Richard to a ship in the Middle East, and Ian to the destroyer Daring in the Far East: there he was awarded the GSM [General Service Medal] for services during Konfrontasi [the Indonesian–Malaysian confrontation 1963–66]. Nevertheless as lieutenants they took the same course to become helicopter pilots and were awarded their wings on the same day in July 1969.
Everything changed that month: on July 5 Ashton, a younger brother and a sub-lieutenant in the Navy, was killed in a car crash, and, three weeks later, Ian was passenger in an MG Midget which crashed in Cornwall, and he was paralysed from the chest down. The £75,000 (equivalent perhaps to £1m today) insurance pay-out was then the highest ever awarded for personal injuries.
Shuttleworth spent six months in hospital, before moving into a Chelsea flat where he lived independently. For many years he commuted around London with his wheelchair in the back of his Mini Clubman which he would park near his destination and many a surprised passer-by was asked to get his wheelchair out for him. He began work for a public relations company before in 1974 becoming an articled clerk in a major law firm, but he quickly regretted this decision, and instead he bought Kontiki, a beach bar, in Mojácar in southern Spain which he ran with the help of girls who flocked there from London.
In 1976 he sold the bar to Gordon Goody, a mastermind of the Great Train Robbery, who was fresh from prison after a 12-year stretch. When the expatriate community expressed its disapproval, Shuttleworth voluntarily returned to Mojácar to help Goody make the Kontiki the success which it still is today.
Shuttleworth was an active liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Shipwrights, an enthusiastic member of the Royal Yacht Squadron, and one of the 120 members of the [exclusive] Castaways [, a club founded in 1895 officers who had left the Navy early in their careers].
Shuttleworth was also a member of the St Moritz Tobogganing Club, having gone down the ¾ mile run as the rear passenger in a two-man bobsleigh. Unable to assist the driver in braking manoeuvres, the result was a hair-raising ride in an exceptionally fast time.
His charming, warm personality attracted many friends ranging from royalty, the sailing fraternity, former schoolmates and naval contemporaries. He rarely refused an invitation and was usually found at the raucous end of the dining table or in the noisiest and most cheerful knot at any party; if steps prevented his access either strong men would carry him up or the most interesting people would gather round him at the foot of the staircase; and he was never first to leave.
Late in life, stimulated by his lifelong interest in marine watercolours and love of opera, he gained an honours degree from the Open University in humanities with art history.
Shuttleworth did not complain about his lot. Only once, after yet another boozy session in The Coopers Arms in the King’s Road, when asked what life was like in a wheelchair did he confide that ‘Every day is a real bastard, but as there is nothing I can do about it, so the only solution is to make the best of every day and try and smile.’ That, the friend, recalled was ‘real bravery – not an instant rush of adrenalin that causes people to do extraordinary things in a short space of time, but when one does extraordinary things every single day’.
His Chelsea & Westminster hospital ward has rarely seen so many visitors as in the weekend before an exhausted but happy Shuttleworth, content that so many had come to see him, called a halt to further treatment for the cancer which had suddenly consumed him.
Ian Shuttleworth, born March 11 1944, died May 23 2015.