FROM motorcycle despatch rider with the Armoured Cars to forecasting the weather for airships as a lieutenant with the Royal Naval Air Service, Norman Silvester had a varied career during the Great War.

“I have a collection of my father’s diaries, meticulously recording his service in the First World War, plus other diaries written at a later date,” said his youngest daughter Mrs Joy Shellard who lives in Highcliffe.

Educated at King’s College, London, Norman Langton Silvester held a science degree and later became a M.Sc. and had a particular interest in geology, collecting specimens whenever he could, even during the war.

The diaries begin in December 1914 after Norman joined the Armoured Cars as a despatch rider and the company ‘dined with the Duke of Westminster at Grosvenor House’.

On March 8 they embarked on the Princess Victoria and after a ‘frightfully rough passage and nearly all sick’ arrived at Dunkirk at 8.30pm. After each man was given a Sailor’s Pay Book and Identification Card, Norman was sent to the new headquarters at Malo. He was a despatch rider to the British Consul, running errands and fetching mail and telegrams to and from the post office.

A month later Norman fell ill. He continued to suffer prolonged severe headaches and was eventually sent back to Britain to the Royal Marine Infirmary. He was pronounced as ‘unserviceable’ and was sent to a nerve specialist. “In June 1916 he joined up again, this time with the Royal Naval Air Service to train to be a Meteorologist for airships. He completed three months training and was then stationed at Mullion Air Station in Cornwall where he would make accurate weather readings for the launch of airships,” said Joy who plans to produce a book on his diaries.

The airships were vital during the war to help counter the German U-Boat menace in the Channel and the Western Approaches. U-Boat attacks were responsible for the heavy loss of many essential boats bringing in food and raw materials.

“He applied to become a pilot after the Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Flying Corps amalgamated to form the Royal Air Force in 1918. But failed because he was colour-blind,” said Joy.

In 1932 Norman was appointed curator of the Russell Cotes Art Gallery and Museum in Bournemouth, after three years as curator of the Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery. By then he was married with three daughters.

He introduced the picture loan system for the museum, the first museum in the country to do so. Another of his achievements was the Geological Terrace which was completed in 1951. He also set up for the first time an art exhibition by Sir Alfred Munnings in 1955. He retired as curator in 1958 because of ill health.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, founder vice president of the Medical Art Society, and a Fellow of the Museums Association, Norman also wrote many papers for the meteorological, aeronautical and geological societies.

He died in 1969 aged 75.