Royal Oak Admiral's last words revealed
(From The Orcadian dated June 28, 2001)

The only official photograph still in existence of Rear Admiral "Evie" Blagrove who was lost on board HMS Royal Oak.

The moving letter was brought to Orkney by Mrs Mary Dickens, daughter of Rear Admiral Henry Evelyn "Evie" Charles Blagrove, who lost his life on October 14, 1939, when the Royal Oak sank in Scapa Flow at around 1am.

Mrs Dickens (79), from East Sussex, was on a sentimental pilgrimage to Orkney at the weekend to see at first hand where her father was lost and to place flowers over the wreck site.

Her visit was an early 80th birthday present from her daughter Marion and son-in-law Jonathan Lloyd.

Mrs Dickens, who was married to Peter Dickens - a great grandson of author Charles Dickens - paid her last respects on Saturday.

Accompanied by Marion and Jonathan, she travelled by OIC pilot boat to lay red and white flowers - the flag colours of an admiral - on the buoy directly over the wreck.

"Naturally it was very moving. My main feeling was that it was a marvellous resting place for the Royal Oak and for my father, and all the people who were lost," Mrs Dickens said.

"Also it's wonderful that all Orcadians are so fascinated by the Royal Oak. It's still there as far as they're concerned. It's not lost and gone forever."

The Royal Oak was sunk by a German U-boat in Scapa Flow in 1939 with the loss of 833 men. It dealt a huge blow to the Royal Navy, who had regarded Scapa Flow as largely impenetrable.

The Rear Admiral, Evie, sent letters to his wife, Edith or "Edie" as she was known, virtually every day.

Part of the final letter sent to his wife by teh commander of the Second Battle Cruiser Squadron, which included HMS Royal Oak.

The letter sent the night before his death starts affectionately, "Edie my Darling," and he continues by telling her about the rough weather they had experienced on a patrol from Scapa Flow.

"The weather has been absolutely foul and even in the days of the Tiger . I remember nothing worse. Gales and storms in full blast and did we bounce!

"However, home again clean and sober and that's why you won't have had any word from me for a few days. I'm hoping for a bit of bed tonight and it was lovely to take off clothes and have a bath after three days. The wind was terrific at times and big seas overall badly beat a lot of things."

Mrs Dickens brought a collection of her father's letters with her and has allowed copies to be made by the Orkney Library archives.

Mrs Dickens was only 17 when her father died,and her mother had moved up to live in Scotland to be nearer her father's posting. They were staying with Mrs Dicken's aunt in Edinburgh where Edie was born.

The Blagroves had first met in Orkney during World War One when Edie served as a Wren and the Admiral was an officer aboard HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Tiger.

Mrs Dickens said: "My father was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral in January, 1939 and was originally posted to the Admiral Superintendent at Chatham Dockyard in Kent."

Following a three-week holiday they discovered a letter from the Admiralty advising that he had been promoted to command of the Royal Oak and Royal Sovereign based in Scapa Flow in August, 1939.

Mrs Dickens explained that her father was delighted at getting promotion to serve with the Home Fleet.

"He had been to Orkney before during the First World War, on board Queen Elizabeth and the Tiger. That was where he met my mother, who came from Edinburgh. So he was absolutely thrilled, of course, to be returning to Scapa Flow. He didn't want a shore job. He was a great seaman all his life. He was obviously sorry at having to say goodbye to my mother and myself, but so pleased to be going -like a dog with two tails really. He had a jolly good ship and was very pleased with his command."

News of the Rear Admiral's death reached the family by chance. His wife had been walking on Edinburgh's Princes Street when she saw a billboard stating the Royal Oak had been sunk.

"We immediately thought 'he'll get some leave', but sadly we heard the next day that he'd lost his life."

To cope with the loss the family threw themselves into the war effort.

"It was, of course, the very beginning of the war and one wasn't so used to casualty lists. That became part of our lives later. I was 18 four days afterwards. I had left school and there was some question about what I was going to do when the war came."

She started work with the Voluntary Aid Detachment and trained as a physiotherapist, while Edie joined the Wrens soon after the loss of the Royal Oak.

Edie ended up a superintendent in charge of all the Wrens working on the Enigma Code project. "It was such secret work my mother didn't talk about it until after the 30-year rule was up. I was allowed to stay with her in quarters, but I didn't know in the least what they did."

Mrs Dickens' daughter, Marion, is fascinated by some of the all too prophetic comments made by her grandfather in his correspondence.

She said: "There are a lot in the letters, before war was declared, about the feeling in the country at the time, and he was terribly interested in the politics leading up to it, realising that it was going to be a terrible war. It is easy for us with hindsight to see that it did happen. But he had a view on what was going to happen."

Mrs Dickens said that she had long held the desire to visit to Orkney and see her father's last resting place, but the opportunity never arose until now. "Obviously I always did want to come up, but I didn't give it a lot of thought because it is a very long way away, and one has a busy life.

"My husband, Peter Dickens, who was a great grandson of the author Charles Dickens, was a war hero as an ace MTB (motor torpedo boat) skipper who led raids from Felixstowe on the Dutch coast during 1941 and 1942, although I didn't marry him until after the war.

"He came up to Orkney in 1987 and went out to the wreck site of the Royal Oak. I couldn't come north on that occasion, so when it was suggested that I might like to celebrate a rather elderly birthday by coming on a holiday with my daughter and son-in-law, it was heaven sent, really."

She added: "This is beautiful country. I know the north of Scotland very well, and I know the Western Isles and the west coast, but I've never been here until this marvellous chance."