MORE than 300 people were at Winchester Cathedral to commemorate the life of former Winchester MP, Rear Admiral Sir Morgan Morgan-Giles.

The memorial service, led by Canon Michael St John-Channell, reflected the life of a seafaring man who devoted his life to public service.

Joining family and members of the public were current MP Steve Brine, former leader of Hampshire County Council Ken Thornber, and Lord-Lieutenant of Hampshire, Dame Mary Fagan.

The standard of the HMS Belfast Association, the ship he saved from the scrap yard, having taken charge of it in 1961, was processed to the alter at the start, followed by his medals.

The opening hymn was Eternal Father, Strong to Save – otherwise known as For Those in Peril on the Sea, written by William Whiting, himself a Winchester man.

An address was given by friend and colleague Admiral Sir Jock Slater. He said: “He was enterprising, determined and imaginative, with the sea in his blood from the very earliest of days.

“We were shocked when overnight in 1964 he resigned his commission, and within days he was seen accosting pedestrians and running alongside cyclists, exhausting party activists with his rollicking style, and was elected a few weeks later.”

Sir Morgan joined the Royal Navy in 1932 and was mentioned in despatches four times. In September 1941 he was awarded the George Medal for “gallantry and undaunted devotion to duty” during bomb and mine disposal work in Egypt.

At the end of a war during which he was recruited by Fitzroy MacLean to run arms to Tito’s partisans in Yugoslavia, he was awarded a DSO for “courage, outstanding leadership and devotion to duty”

Admiral Slater said that senior naval officers had initially declined MacLean’s request that Sir Morgan join him in Yugoslavia, saying: “Morgan-Giles has been off the leash for too long,” before Churchill intervened on his behalf.

At Westminster, Sir Morgan condemned the decision to withdraw East of Suez “as a sop to the left wing”, advocated British intervention with the Americans in Vietnam and supported the construction of a fifth Polaris nuclear submarine – evidence, Sir Jock told the congregation, that he was a man with the courage of his convictions, perhaps considered too outspoken for a ministerial position.

He moved away from the district in later life, but maintained strong links with Winchester, where several family members still live, including his son Rodney, who farms at Old Alresford.

In a tribute to his father, he told those gathered that after his father passed away, aged 98, he had found amongst his papers a note to the family, which said: “To have had a happy life and an interesting one, and to be proud of one’s family: what more can any man ask for than that?”