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Royal Navy sailor keeps up family tradition
27 February 2025
A Sailor on a course at HMS Collingwood brought back memories for her examiner – who remembered he had passed her mother on the same course 34 years ago.
Leading Hand Sea Specialist China-Rose Pennycook was taking her Global Maritime Distress and Safety System General Operators Certificate at the Hampshire base, unaware she was making history.
The external examiner, Roger Lownsborough, recognised her surname – and a quick flick through his paperwork showed he had been the examiner for China’s mum, Valerie, when she passed the course in December 1991 at the Southampton Institute of Higher Education (now Solent University).
Valerie was qualifying as a radio operator for oil rigs. China’s dad Robert, also in shipping, completed the same course in Southampton in 1995.
China is pictured with examiner Roger.