We are deeply saddened to advise that our good friend and colleague Brian Malpas passed away peacefully at his home in Somerset last evening (10th January 2020), after being seriously ill for some time. He had been in hospital for several weeks but it was his wish to return home where he was well cared for by his partner, Barbara Roberts, and his sons, and PALS nurses.
Brian was born in Birmingham, in the English Midlands in 1935, and served in the Army, in the Sherwood Forresters, before joining the Birmingham City Police where he served from 1951-1953. He joined the Bermuda Police on 29th May 1957 along with Jim Woodward, and served for 3 years in Central Division (Hamilton) before being transferred to Western Division where he spent the majority of his police service. Brian was posted to Marine Section in 1960 where he obtained his Pilot’s Licence and developed a love of the sea and sailing for the rest of his life, becoming a first class diver and a good friend of Bermuda’s legendary diver Teddy Tucker.
After 3 years in Marine Section, Brian returned to Western Division and apart from a 4 year spell in Central Uniform from 1976-1980 he spent the rest of his career in Western Division until retirement in 1982.
Brian married his wife, Betty (nee Lightbain) in 1961 and they had four sons, David, Peter, Christopher and Robin, all of whom reside in Bermuda. His wife Betty pre-deceased him.
In recent years Brian has had a wonderful partner, Barbara Roberts, and the two would regularly attend our ExPo functions. We heard the sad news of Brian’s passing from Dave Barber who recalled that Barbara has known Brian for longer than anyone else in Bermuda because the two came out on the same passenger ship as each other and have always kept in touch with each other.
Anyone who knew Brian would surely agree that he was one of the great characters of the Bermuda Police. I had approached him numerous times with a request that he sit down and write his own lifestory, but Brian would succinctly say, “If I wrote it you could never publish it!”
One young police officer who got to know Brian very well in the mid-1960’s was former P.C. David Mulhall who later wrote an account of his time in Bermuda, and he made the following aptly descriptive comment about Brian, “If I had to identify one former Bermuda Police colleague as the most interesting, larger than life "character" I got to know "on the job" I would have no difficulty choosing Brian Malpas - until I realized that I had never actually worked with him. Brian’s escapades on or off duty were legendary and often hilariously funny, especially if he told the story. He loved recounting the details of his sometimes outrageous practical jokes.” Brian taught Dave to dive and you can read more about their friendship in our Hall of Fame article about Dave which can be viewed at http://expobermuda.com/index.php/latesthof/472-david-mulhall
We will no doubt hear more from Brian’s friends about his exploits and encourage anyone who wants to let us know about their experiences to either write to us or use the comments section below to do so. One zany story we need to hear concerns Brian travelling to visit his good friend John “Coco” Eve in North Staffordshire for his 80th birthday where he planned to go powergliding at The Roaches in Derbyshire. What else would an 80 year old want to do celebrate his birthday?! We are also aware that Brian and Dave Barber were very close friends who have been on vacation together and Dave was be ideally suited to write a "tell all" account of some of their adventures.
In the meantime we would like to express our sincere condolences to Barbara, and to David, Peter, Chris and Robin, and to the Malpas family and all of Brian’s friends. We will post details of his funeral as soon as we receive them.