The Captain's Log: From Conway and Clan Line to Trinity House

James Alexander Riach was born in Dingwall, in the north of Scotland, in 1928 and grew up in the Western Isles, in Tobermory, Mull, and in Stornoway, on Lewis. He left to train as a marine cadet on HMS Conway, North Wales, from 1944-45, then went to sea as an officer with the Clan Line in the Merchant Navy. In 1961 he joined the Trinity House Pilots and worked in the pilotage service, taking ships out from the Terrace Pier at Gravesend and down the London River into the Channel and sometime...