WITH the world commemorating 100 years since the start of the First World War this year, a Tavistock family remembers their own hero. Ann Mason told the Times that her father Captain Victor Alfred Richard Jury, OBE, was born on September 7, 1897. Victor's father, who was in the Merchant Navy, died in 1898 at the age of 21 from TB (tuberculosis), and his grandfather, born in Whitchurch, looked after him for a short time. Victor's mother then moved to Newton Abbot where he then attended the nearby grammar school; while there he won athletic cups for running in 1914 and 1915. The First World War began in 1914 and Mr Jury joined the Merchant Navy in June 1916 and became a midshipman and then Acting Sub Lieutenant on board Patuca — an armed merchant cruiser, which was formerly an Elders and Fyffes banana boat. Patuca took part in Northern Patrols, a Royal Navy operation to 59 degrees north to prevent German warships passing from the North Sea into the Atlantic and to check merchant ships were not carrying on trade with Germany — thus almost daily armed boarding of ships took place. On the same ship, Mr Jury, who was now a captain, took part in North Atlantic convoys, and was on board Patuca until 1919 when he returned to the Merchant Navy. Captain Jury was lucky enough to survive the Great War and continued his career at sea. He was also involved in World War Two. Despite now being over 40, due to his being a captain of oil tankers, he again took part in Atlantic convoys. One convoy was to Murmansk in Russia — during which his ship was torpedoed and towed into Falmouth in a sinking condition! It was during World War Two when Victor received his OBE. Mrs Mason sent off for her father's Arctic Star for being on convoys to Russia — which would bring the total of his medals to 13. l Mrs Mason moved to Tavistock 40 years ago from Plymouth and a few years ago decided to investigate the Jury family. From records available she discovered that John Jury, born 1767 in Buckland Monachorum, married in 1804 in Whitchurch Church. The list of baptisms in Whitchurch Church shows eight Jurys between then and 1854 and also four burials of the Jury family ranging in age from one to 77 years of age.