August 1946 to September 2000
With great sadness we have to announce the death, in
Neskaupstašur, Iceland, of
Neil Shave (Reynir Neil),
one of our former leaders, at the age of 54.
During many of the years from 1984 to 1998 he gave us regular help on major activities. In 1998 he emigrated to Iceland, which was a serious loss to us, but he helped at odd events after then when he was back in the UK.
Neil had outstanding qualities and skills in helping young people, and many of our present and former members will remember him with great affection and respect. His instruction at canoeing at the level we required was second to none. In addition to that he made a major impact on many of our activities - on the hills, on camps, on cruises, at Troop meetings.
If you have ever done any of these activities with us, then you must thank Neil, for he either ran the activity, introduced us to the activity, or set the standard somewhere in the background: canoe rolling, swimming pool canoe circuit rafting, training for BCU awards, canoeing at Westward Ho! (North Devon), Horstead Mill, and Cardington, and 5 Norwich School Expeditions to Iceland. His research and enterprise set much of the programme for the Jersey camps, and the quality of his shore-based instruction on just about any Scouting topic was quite outstanding.
He will be dearly missed.
Below is the text from part of a tribute sent in by Jonny Riches, a former Scout, and member of ther Norwich School Iceland 1999 Expedition.
As is so often the way with such tragic events, I had recently been reading a letter which he sent me back in 1995, and had made a note to e-mail you to check his address in order that I might send him a Christmas card. I did not get round to this, though, before it was too late, and like so many of us will now be left with a deep sense of loss, and regret that I had not better kept in touch.
I last saw Neil when he stayed with in Norwich last year; on the 14th December; Rob Francis, Ben Symington and I met him for a drink in the Maid's Head. Then he seemed very relaxed, happier without the difficulties he encountered teaching in the school at Neskaupstašur. As ever, he left us all feeling inspired by his remarkable aura of wisdom, at a time when we were facing the uncertainties of university applications and needing to get the requisite grades for them. He understood us youngsters particularly well; I remember him causing some controversy when, in a cosy cabin chat on an Easter cruise some years ago (around U4, I think), when the boys were just beginning to awaken to the idea of girls, he told us that any 12 or 13 year-old who claimed to have a girlfriend was mentally unstable! That put certain people in their place... He was genuinely interested in people, and to be given a bit of the attention which he so readily meted out made many years of adolescents who, at an age when they were bound to feel a little insecure, feel far more confident, and to feel that here was an adult whom they could relate to. Without doubt his canoe instruction, with his endlessly patient approach and his unquestioned technical ability (I think we were always rather in awe of the fact that he had written a book about it) brought us an enduring attachment to messing about in boats. But it went beyond that, to encouraging us to carry on trying with something that seemed difficult at first, to see everything in life as a river which turned into a rapid at times, but which we could always navigate if we kept our heads and paddled the right strokes - and that, of course, was what St. Friendship was all about.
I know that I, and I think a good deal many other people, will wish that we had got to know Neil better. He always seemed to have hidden depths which one could not reach, which of course only made us admire him more. We heard little snatches about his time in Germany, his work with young offenders, his early trips to Iceland, but never the full story. We had tremendous respect for his courage in abandoning his life here, mastering a prohibitively complicated language and decamping to an alien culture to teach there. We knew that here was a man of extraordinary talent in so many fields, who could reach out to others through his work (the Comenius programme being a case in point), who could treat others as equals while always being a figure who was looked up to. Like his beloved dog Arly before him, he will be greatly missed; I trust that we will not forget too quickly the fine example that he set.
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