David Clunie (OK 1980)

David Clunie (19/03/1963 - 06/04/2021) passed away peacefully on Tuesday 6th April 2021 at the age of 58 after over a year battling pancreatic cancer.

The eldest of three brothers who attended King’s from the Junior School, David, on leaving school, took up a Royal Navy cadetship to study engineering at Durham. He served with the RN for 9 years before gaining a conversion to the Royal Artillery where he rose to the rank of Major. In 2002 he married Sarah and retired to a gentle country life becoming a local magistrate.

In 2015 David’s love of all things nautical and particularly Dunkirk little ships saw him rescue the 77 foot steel motor yacht Llanthony from Ireland where she’d been languishing. Llanthony, a private yacht with a history of distinguished owners and guests, had rescued 350 men from the beaches at Dunkirk and served the rest of the war as a coastal patrol boat. David brought her back to Britain, had her refitted in the Solent and finally brought her up the Thames to be moored a couple of hundred yards from their Henley home.

Those who knew him are unanimous in regarding David Clunie as the most upright and honourable gentleman of his time. He will be sorely missed by Sarah, his surviving brother, Chris, all his many dear friends and, of course, Baggy Bear and all of the bears in Sarah’s collection.