This site is a tribute to Alun Roberts.

Alun James Roberts was born on 8 September 1925 to the Rev. Will and Dr. Janet Roberts. He spent his early years in Horsley, Derbyshire, where his father was the vicar. Memories from these days included family holidays sailing on the Norfolk Broads, and the family motor car. Alun’s father died suddenly in 1934, leaving his mother with three boys to raise— Andrew, Alun and Douglas. His mother moved the family to Bradford and Alun went to boarding school.

Alun was accepted to Jesus College, Oxford University to read Mechanical Engineering, but his studies were interrupted by service in the Royal Navy. Alun’s time aboard HMS Ocean, gave him life-long friends as well as a rich repository of stories, accents, sayings, jokes, and songs of questionable taste.

Alun met his first wife Elizabeth sailing dinghies on the Thames. Together they built a house which they named Windsong, had three children – Sue, James, and Andrew and started a small business from their new home. Clipper Air Handling Units grew to be a successful firm employing over 30 people. Alun moved from dinghies to a cruiser called Amity II –linking his own passion for the sea with the life of his great grandfather George Thompson and the tea clippers of the famous Aberdeen Line. Elizabeth passed away in 1989 after a devastating illness through which Alun lovingly cared for her.

In 1991, Alun married Mavis Jennings, whose dear husband Alan had passed away in 1986. Alun lent his support and engineer’s creativity to Mavis’s flower arranging career, and Mavis joined Alun on many sailing trips. Together they had many North Sea nautical adventures aboard Amity II, as well as sunnier sojourns in the Windward Islands and elsewhere. Alun helped Mavis through dark times too, especially when her son Shaun, brother of Garry and Matthew, died in 1992. Together, they enjoyed entertaining their friends, supporting St. Giles Church, the Gerrards Cross Sailing Association and the RNLI, and spending time with their children and their partners/spouses in places near and far. Each family member can recall many happy afternoons of badminton, barbecues, and banter on the back lawn of Glade Cottage, as the growing cadre of eleven Jennings and Roberts grandchildren visited and gathered as they were able to enjoy Alun and Mavis’s warm hospitality.