Your editor was saddened to hear from Hugo Stacey that his father had died peacefully at the Pax Hill Nursing Home, Bentley, on 15 July 2013.

Michael Stacey was a longstanding personal friend, a Member of the ISCO Executive Committee and a stalwart supporter of the organisation since it was first established in 1984.

Born in 1924 in Wimbledon, educated at Epsom College, he joined the Royal Navy at Dartmouth in 1942 as a seamen officer. He commanded various HM ships at home and abroad and retired as Flag officer, Gibraltar 1980.

Thereafter he was recruited to serve in the Department of Transport to establish and run, for eight years, the Marine Pollution Control Unit which was responsible for providing the national response to marine oil spills which threatened the UK.

During this time he also ran HM Coastguard for five years and was the President of the Bonn Agreement and Chairman of the UK Search and Rescue Committee.

He was a Younger Brother of Trinity House, a Freeman of the City of London, a member of the Honourable Company of Shipwrights, and a Member of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners.

At the working level he was advisor to RVL Group, an aviation company at Coventry specialising in oil spill operations, advisor to OSRL/EARL, the major industry response organisation based at Southampton, and a former chairman of the British Oil Spill Control Association (BOSCA).

In support of his favourite charity he was a Life Vice President of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).