Sadly Archie passed away on Friday 18th November 2011. Archies’ funeral will be at 11am at St. Mary’s church, Brighstone on Monday 5th Dec, and afterwards in the Three Bishops pub, Brighstone.
It was a very peaceful death with many of the nurses who had looked after him for the last two years at his side. Betty was with him all afternoon and he had managed to hold her hand for a while.
Betty had commented to the nurses a while ago that she didn’t like the pictures on the wall in his room and the next time she went in they had downloaded the photo’s of the surf board etc from the Wight Surf History website and stuck them over the offending pictures! It really made Betty smile… such a lovely thought!
Betty has asked a carpenter to make a coffin from the collection of wood he had stored up in the shed…including a bit salvaged from the pub re-vamp. Something he would have loved!
Archie had been in long term residential care in Shackleton unit in Ryde since 2009 due to Alzheimers. He was looked after with great care and affection by wonderful staff until he slipped peacefully away on Friday 18th November 2011.
Archie William Trickett was born 9th March 1922 in Brighstone and started work as an apprentice Carpenter with Buckett and sons at 14yrs old. He joined LDV (local defence volunteers) 1940 and later the Homeguard, joining up for the RAF in 1942.
Archie went all round the UK training and eventually went to India and had many adventures, some involving Dutch Nurses! Once home he was very reluctant to ever travel again!!
Archie met Betty at Atherfield Holiday camp and married in 1955. They had two daughters Ann and Sarah. Betty still lives in their wooden house in Brighstone that they built together nearly 60 years ago.
In the mid 1960’s he got into surfing! Archie made his own surfboard and wetsuit and was still surfing in his 70’s. He loved watching the younger surfers catching waves and just wished he could stay out as long as they did, his hands used to go white with cold and he’d have to come in!!
Archies’ daughter Sarah came across the Wight Surf History website when by chance she decided to google her fathers name. Sarah remembers her Dad loading the surfboard up on top of the motor bike and sidecar… it was quite a sight! They also had a Ford Anglia (like Harry Potter!) with a purpose built wooden roof rack on top for the board. Archie would roll up all their ‘swimmers’ in beach towels, put the roll on his head and balance the board on top of that to walk along to the best bit of the beach…(before all the grockles and those weird lot of people who inhabited other parts of the Island over the downs invaded!! – says Sarah)
He carried on surfing into his ’70s and Betty still has that surf board he made all those years ago. He taught Sarah to surf on it when she was about 7. Sarah remembers quite happily standing up on it! Archie also made Sarah her own wetsuit from the offcuts of his homemade suit… Sarah thinks she may have been the first child to have a wet suit on the IOW! ‘I certainly don’t remember ever seeing another child with one,’ she says. ‘Once the zip got stuck and I remember I small group of young men round me with a pot of vaseline trying to get me free!’
