Obituary Peter Iain 'Pip' Pool
Peter Iain (Pip) Pool (W 1960-63)
My brother Pip was born in Salisbury on 5th September 1946 of long lines of Cornish ancestry. When he was three, our mother married Franklyn Pool (W 1919-23). He took our stepfather’s surname and was renamed by his initials to distinguish him from Franklyn’s son Peter, who would become a distinguished Cornish historian https://peterpool.co.uk/. They had two children together, including William (W 1965-70) and we grew up in a blended family of six with an age range of twenty years.
On leaving Blundell’s Pip trained as a mechanical engineer, joining the family firm in Hayle founded by Franklyn’s forebears early in the 19th century. J and F Pool Ltd, whose core work was perforated metal, were major employers in west Cornwall. Their products included the conspicuous stainless-steel vents for the Intercity 125 rolling stock than ran the full length of every carriage on each side and the ceiling. Pip left the firm when it was sold in 1986 and then ran a very successful care home until he retired in 2015. The success of that venture enabled him to take numerous holiday cruises, including one on each of the three Cunard Queens in a single year.
Pip was a keen sailor, a noted force in a competitive dinghy fleet, and later a keen golfer, an interest he shared with his wife Lesley. And he was a devoted father and grandfather.