Framlinghamian 2022 - Flipbook - Page 241
SOF | WITH THE SERVICES: ROYAL NAVY
Royal Navy
COMMODORE TIM WOODS RN (R76-83) WROTE:
Having left Framlingham in 1988, I
times, it is like living in a John Le Carré
joined the Royal Navy as a University
novel, with unwelcome visitors at night
Cadet Entrant with a deferred place at
coming into our apartment, candlesticks
Cambridge and have enjoyed a varied
turned upside down and my daughter’s
career. This has included service in Hong
floor puzzles completed while we are out,
Kong, submarines and Afghanistan
while we seem to attract lots of men in
(where I used to have lunch with Tim How
leather coats walking with us and sitting
every Sunday!). I also had the privilege of
down at the next table in restaurants! HMS
a Far East deployment with Rob Bellfield
DEFENDER’s right of innocent passage
back in the early 1990s and completing
just off Crimea in June highlighted the
a course with Tim How and Piers Moore
Royal Navy’s courage to stand up for
in 2002/03. Additionally, my time in the
international law and highlighted the
RN has included four different posts in the
ongoing tensions in the Black Sea.
Ministry of Defence and a secondment to
the National Security Secretariat in the
Cabinet Officer as the lead for countering
hybrid attacks.
Since 2019, I have been serving as the
UK Defence Attaché in Kyiv, Ukraine, a
fascinating role in a country fighting a
war with Russian-led separatists in its two
furthermost eastern counties of Donetsk
(Suffolk) and Luhansk (Norfolk), and one
Tim Woods and his family
which had Crimea (a larger equivalent
of the Isle of Wight) illegally annexed
I still have a cottage near Woodbridge in
in 2014. The job allows for plenty of
Suffolk and relish returning home every
travel around what is Europe’s largest
couple of months. For my 50th in 2019, my
country, known as the ‘breadbasket of
wife and Hamish Heeley arranged for a
Europe’. I also have a regional role in
tour of the College; whilst much was new,
Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus
there were many familiar sights and smells
and Moldova, essentially countries of the
to make it seem like only yesterday that
former Soviet Union where Russia is still
we were studying for A-levels and it was
competing for influence, which makes
great to see the Upper Sixth photo of 1988
life both challenging and interesting. At
still on display in the main drag!
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