MEMORIES have been shared of a Weymouth man who travelled to the other side of the world to ask for the hand in marriage of the woman he loved.

Stuart Desmond Scott - a former postman, Weymouth Pavilion worker and Echo van driver, passed away last month aged 83.

His son Martin has chosen to share some of the photos from the family photo album - showing Stuart, originally from Oxfordshire, in the many different facets of Weymouth life he was involved in.

Martin said: "Dad was a pillar of the local community; he wasn't a councillor or of any particular high standing in any community or organisation.

"He was an honest, local, hard-working man, who kept down three jobs and brought up, along with his treasured wife, a beautiful, successful, and upstanding family, in trying circumstances and difficult times."

Stuart met his wife-to-be Diana Joshua in 1955 at St Mary's Church Hall in Weymouth. She had travelled thousands of miles from the Island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, to come to Weymouth to study at the local teacher training college.

Martin said: "Apparently, on Diana’s spin of the lid she called out 'Stuart', and the rest as they say, is history!

"They courted for a couple of years until she finished her training in 1957, and returned to the island. Stuart was besotted with her, so took six months’ unpaid leave and travelled to St. Helena to ask for her hand in marriage.

"While there he helped around the house, and acted guard overnight as thieves were stealing their potatoes – he confided in me once that he was ‘petrified’ sleeping alone out in the crops, but I’m sure the little islanders would have been equally scared being faced with this huge, white giant if they tried to pilfer!"

Stuart did National Service from 1951-1953 in the Grenadier Guards, having trained at Pirbright & Caterham in Surrey. He was posted to Egypt for the Suez conflict.

He made it to the rank of Lance Corporal; he was tempted to stay in, but opted instead to return to the General Post Office, where he started off aged 17 working as a telegram boy.

Stuart and Diane returned to Weymouth from St Helena in 1958, Diana as a teacher, and Stuart back as a postman.

They lived firstly on The Esplanade, then Diana became pregnant with Martin, so they moved to Spa Road, then bought a house in Gallwey Road.

In 1960 Stuart got a job at the new theatre, Weymouth Pavilion, which had opened as the previous theatre on that site, The Ritz, had burned down some years before.

He was a commissionaire at the Pavilion, and very proudly stood in the foyer in his green uniform helping patrons with their theatrical needs.

In his spare time, what little he had, he enjoyed weightlifting and bodybuilding, DIY, collecting medals and militaria. He also loved the church, attending first St. Laurence's, then St. Edmund’s in Lanehouse.

As well as the Post Office, Stuart worked for the Dorset Echo as a van driver, delivering Echos round the small villages of Dorset.

Martin was born in 1959, Annette in 1961, Ian in 1962 and Graham in 1964. In 1968, the family moved to St. Helens Road, and remained there for 46 years

The couple loved to cruise the Rhine, and went back to St. Helena and Ascension Island a few times.

Diana passed away in 2009 after succumbing to Alzheimer’s. Stuart was there to tend and care for her, but struggled as an elderly person himself, so she went into Trafalgar care home.

Stuart moved to Legh House in Wyke Regis in 2014. Then a year ago, because of ill-health, he moved to Gracewell Nursing Home in Cross Road.

Martin said: "He enjoyed these times in care homes, as he was such a charmer, he was always flirting and puckering up with the girls, and it gave him a new lease of life.

"Unfortunately, such was the toll on his heart, lungs and general health, he quietly slipped away on March 7 this year.

"Gone from our midst is a kind man, a good man, a husband, a father, a friend, a brother, an uncle, a son, a grandfather, a colleague and a Christian."

*Thanks to Martin and family for sharing these memories and photos with us.

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