RIP Dad - Colin Paton 1945-2021

Earlier today my father Colin Paton passed away at a hospital near Kilmarnock, Scotland. 

Born in Belfast in October 1945 and raised as a child in the County Antrim town of Carrickfergus, he later joined the Merchant Navy and then the Royal Navy, where he worked as a submariner for 15 years. He left the Navy in 1978 and after many years working in the voluntary sector in Northern Ireland, he later joined Great Western Rail to work as a train conductor. 

In 1999 he was the guard on the train that was crashed into at the Ladbroke Grove/Paddington disaster, who saved the lives of many through his quick actions in diverting further trains from entering the station on the same line. In the aftermath of this he relocated to Crete for fifteen years, before moving to Scotland three and half years ago.

Having only been admitted to the hospital yesterday, I was able to get to the hospital to be with him through the night, and was with him when he passed away this morning. He is survived by his five children, Chris, Colin, Dawn, Robert and Bronagh, and his grandchildren Calum, Jamie and Pippa.

RIP Dad, you will be sadly missed x

NB: Upon returning home from hospital earlier I was subsequently contacted by the NHS to say that my father had been found to have tested positive for Covid-19. As a consequence, I am now self-isolating for the next ten days. Should this impact on any forthcoming commitments I will advise those involved.

Chris

Pre-order my next book, Sharing Your Family History Online, at https://bit.ly/SharingFamHist. My book Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scottish2 is also out, as are Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed) at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Irish1 and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records at http://bit.ly/ChrisPaton-Scotland1. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.