In September 2020, I formally handed over to Tony Goldsmith as leader of the Marine and Trade Division of Hill Dickinson and at the end of this year I will retire after 45 years with the firm. 

The time has been marked by tremendous friendships and camaraderie and indeed the thing which I will miss the most after my retirement will undoubtedly be the people with whom I have worked both within the firm and in the markets that Hill Dickinson serves.  It is somewhat ironic, therefore, that I will retire at a time when the opportunity to acknowledge and meet with those colleagues and celebrate those friendships is severely curtailed by the current pandemic.

Nevertheless, the inconvenience is as nothing compared with the impact the pandemic has had upon key workers in the marine sector and, in particular, the seafarers who have continued to man the ships upon which they serve, throughout the crisis. 

I vividly remember my early days as a young and naive marine lawyer in Liverpool attending aboard ships on which on occasions the conditions could only be described as appalling. Fortunately standards steadily improved for seafarers, but the current pandemic has given rise to real challenges for seafarers.

Accordingly, and as the prospect of being able to prop up various bars in the hope of being provided with a retirement drink was a vain one, on Sunday 20th September I set off from St Bees Head on the west coast of Cumbria and after 13 continuous days of hiking across various terrains and in significantly contrasting weather conditions, I completed the 190-mile Coast to Coast Walk at Robin Hood’s’ Bay on the east coast of Cleveland raising much-needed funds for the Mission to Seafarers' Flying Angel Campaign. 

The 13 days were a remarkable experience. Quite apart from the physical challenge my most abiding memory has to be the warmth, kindness and generosity of people whom I encountered along the journey. To encounter this was quite inspirational given the situation in which we have all found ourselves over the last 6 months. Such generosity has also been exhibited by so many of you in your exceptionally generous donations to the Campaign. I will be forever grateful to you all for that.

If you might have considered buying me a retirement pint but for the pandemic, would you still please consider donating the price of that pint (London prices please!) to the Mission.   

Your continued support is very much appreciated. Thanks.

Maurizio Borgatti, head of corporate partnerships at the Mission: “David’s walk has been a fantastic achievement and quite simply an exemplary challenge. Given the 13 days it took David to complete his walk and the time needed for preparation, it is good to reflect on what Andrew Wright the secretary general of the Mission to Seafarers recently said about time: “Time is precious for all of us. Time is precious for those 300,000 seafarers who are now working beyond their contracts because of the ongoing crew change issues. Detained by circumstance, long-awaited time with families can only now be seen through a fog of uncertainty and anxiety. Every minute and every step counts as we work to support, advocate and care. There is still time to donate.”

The Flying Angel Campaign has now reached an amazing £630,000 in 14 weeks and almost half has already been spent in areas such as: PPE, making port mini-buses secure, seafarer family feeding programmes in India, providing family support and financial aid to seafarers in the Philippines, digital chaplaincy, and restarting ship visits wherever possible across the globe. 

Please visit https://www.missiontoseafarers.org/covid-19 for further details of the Campaign.