Bert Wilson 
1934 - 2020

​Bert was born on 4th September 1934. He was brought up initially in Greenock’s Belville street area, The family house was bombed out in the Greenock blitz, but he was in hospital at the time, miraculously the family all survived.

The family moved to Nimmo street and then Bow Road in Greenock.  Bert did his apprenticeship in the Shipyards and then joined the Merchant Navy as an engineer where he claimed he went “halfway round the world twice.” On one occasion on shore leave in Japan , he along with others  of the crew, was invited to be an extra in a film,  where he played an oil-covered engineer one day and a tuxedo-clad first class passenger the next. He also boxed while in the Merchant Navy and won a bronze medal in a national championship in the Albert Hall. 

Bert met Sandra  in 1957 and they married in 1959, and subsequently had three boys. He took up a role in the Greenock Post Office , where he worked alongside his brother and later his son until retirement.

Bert and Sandra were initially very involved in their local Church of Scotland, as church officers and running the Shipmates and Junior Boys Brigade.
After moving house to the Larkfield area, they became involved with the Struthers Larkfield church where he came to know the Lord and they quickly took up similar roles in maintaining the church and running youth clubs and games nights for the local youth.

After the Larkfield church closed, Bert was involved in the works in Skelmorlie and latterly in Gourock.

Bert was known to many as “the man who greeted them with a big friendly smile” as he gave out the hymn books at the Greenock Church for many years. After suffering many years of dementia, he was released to a much better place on 17th April 2020.

He is survived by Sandra, Robert, Peter and David and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren and will be greatly missed by all.