Pete Best, 1920-2007
Pete Best, UK POPS #42 and JOE #1, passed away on the 25th May 2007, after a long and hard fought battle with cancer.
Pete was an engineer and lectured in engineering, and had a keen
interest in motorcycling in spite of a few spills, before he took up
parachuting in 1976.
Pete has been one of the most consistent and supportive members of
POPS since 1989 when I started jumping, and certainly before that too.
Already by
that time, his jumping was in abeyance following a heart attack
which occurred after a jump at Doncaster Parachute Club.
Pete wasn't one to give up his associations with parachuting, and so
turned his attentions to judging, and his precise engineer's brain made
him a proficient and accurate judge at national and international levels,
where he was always accompanied and supported by his wife Hettie.
In spite of his earlier heart attack, Pete was a very fit man. On one
occasion in Cyprus, he was chasing my wife, Julie, across the beach and
although she was thirty years his junior he was closing in. Hoping to
escape, she dashed into the sea and swam strongly away only to be shocked
by how closely he was still following.
It was this fitness and tenacity that were hallmarks of Pete, and led
to his getting cleared to jump again as he approached his eightieth
birthday. Consequently, a week after he was eighty, Pete donned a rig
and lobbed out at 9000 ft over British Skysports, Bridlington,
as an opening jump of the June 2000 POPS meet.
Pete was awarded the gold medal for accuracy in the over 80's class
at the meet, and then announced his retirement from jumping; voluntarily,
rather than being forced to stop by doctor's orders.
He went on to found the Jumpers Over Eighty Society (JOES) and became
Top JOE #1. Pete continued to judge and was even judging at the 8th
World POPS Meet in Eloy, Arizona in October 2006, although by then he was
fighting cancer. At that event, Pete and Hettie were awarded the
'Skydivers Over Sixty Meritorious Award' for years of volunteering
selfless and enthusiastic service to POPS, SOS, JOS, and JOE.
Pete was an intelligent and brave man. He was always worth listening to
and was very supportive of me during my time as UK Top POP. I knew him as a
good friend and I shall miss him, as will his many friends in the UK and around the world.
He will also be remembered for "Pete's Pot", the annually contested
UK Hit'n'Rock trophy that he kindly donated. Wherever you are, Pete,
have a good one.
Pete Shew
Pete and Hettie at a British Parachute Association A.G.M in the nineties
Pete (second left) at a meal at the Cyprus meet 1992.
Julie Shew, Lofty Thomas, Pete and Hettie in Cyprus, 1992.
Pete and friends on his last jump aged eighty, 30th June 2001 (he was 80 on
the 22nd June).
Pete being awarded the gold medal for over 80's accuracy ny Pete Shew, UK Top
POP, 2nd June 2001.
Pete and Hettie with others at the 6th World Meet at Matamata in New Zealand in
2002.
Pete in a pensive mood at Cockerham, May 25th 2002.
Pete receiving the SOS Certificate of Meritorious Service from Top SOS
Pat Moorehead during the opening ceremony of the 8th World POPS meet at Eloy.
Jumpers Over Eighty Society members: Tom Morrison (JOES #13) from USA,
Peter Best (JOES #1) from United Kingdom, Mabel Swift (JOES #2) from
United Kingdom, John Browett (JOES #16) from South Africa.
Pete and Hettie at the 8th World POPS Meet.
Photos by Inger Allum, Pete Shew, Tom Zukowski, Cheryl Whitford, Alicia Moorehead
and others
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