BRUCE, Cmdr Peter RN 1941-2025

[Richard R]

From the Telegraph of 26 Feb 2025: BRUCE Commander (Ret'd) Peter. Respected sailor, writer, skier, husband and brother quietly slipped his mooring on 18th February aged 83 years. An open memorial service will be held on 4th April at St Thomas Church, Lymington... Donations to Oakhaven Hospice, Lymington.

He was the son of Erroll BRUCE 1913-2004 (gt gs of Sir James Robertson BRUCE 2^nd Bt 1788-1836 of Downhill – now BRUCE-CLIFTON Bts) and Sylvia Daphne c1919- d of Col Charles Reginald Sylvester BRADLEY 1878-1943 and Juliet Salome HAWKER 1884-1960 scion of that Colonial Gentry family of Adelaide. 

Details of his marriage do not appear in DPB online.

[S R Eglesfield]

His mother's first name appears to have been spelt as Silvia, rather than Sylvia, although she was known as Daphne, anyway. She was born on 11 January 1919, and died on 21 April 2019, three months after celebrating her 100th birthday.

His wife would appear to be Sandy Irene BRUCE, formerly DAVENPORT (per company records, born VI 1951), whom he married in 2011.

[colinp]

Obit in the Daily Telegraph 30 April 2025 - Commander Peter Bruce, naval engineer and racing yachtsman who sailed to win, obituary

EXTRACTS:

Commander Peter Bruce, naval engineer and racing yachtsman who sailed to win

He represented Britain on seven occasions, won eight times during Cowes Week and was also a successful ski racer

Commander Peter Bruce, who has died aged 83, was a naval engineer, accomplished skier and a highly successful racing yachtsman […..]

Peter Bruce was born on September 26 1941 in Hove, East Sussex. His father, Commander Errol Bruce, was a prolific author and publisher whose career as a submariner ended on September 4 1939 when Sturgeon surfaced in a designated “safe” area off Dundee and was bombed by the RAF: Sturgeon survived but Cdr Bruce was seriously injured.

Later, Errol Bruce spent nearly three years of the war in the cruiser Glasgow in the Far East while his wife, Daphne Bradley, an artist and sculptress who had studied under Henry Moore, brought up their children in a pretty and ancient thatched cottage on a hill at Winterborne Whitechurch in Dorset […]

Bruce served on the committees of the Royal Naval Sailing Association, the Royal Ocean Racing Club, the Royal Lymington Yacht Club and the Royal Yacht Squadron. At the RYS in Cowes, Bruce became custodian of its many historic marine artefacts, including telescopes, binoculars, clocks, canons, tillers, wheels, bells, a figurehead, and 22 cannon from the Royal yacht Royal Adelaide of 1834. Bruce set about restoring and displaying these, and the cannon, which had become hazardous, were given stainless steel sleeves and another 200 years of life.

Bruce was also a successful ski racer, and finished sixth overall for England in the Commonwealth Winter Games at St Moritz in 1966. Later, he took the Ski Club of Great Britain’s “reps” course, and on his winter leaves from the Navy he led parties to the slopes, where his health would allow him to stay for three weeks at a time. After the Navy he was the SCGB’s “rep” at Klosters for 19 years, an experience he chronicled in his final book, Skiing Days (2024).

Peter Bruce was gentle, kind, warm, funny and meticulous, and in 2011 his heart was won by the yachtswoman Sandy Hiett, whom he met on a Royal Cruising Club skiing holiday: they settled in Lymington and shared one yacht. She survives him.

Commander Peter Bruce, born September 26 1941, died February 18 2025