(+1) 647-203-8595

1958         Dartmouth.  Missed the train at Paddington so arrived late in company with
             Mike Clarke; we were the only two who didn’t march up the hill but rode in
             style.   Went to sea in the good ship Venus and slept in a hammock.
1959 - 62    St. John’s College, Cambridge, for the Mechanical Sciences Tripos.  2:1.
1962 - 63    HMS Ark Royal,  Singapore, Australia, Hong Kong, Aden, Suez, UK.
1963 - 65    Application training at RNEC Manadon and Collingwood.
1965 - 67    WREO of HMS Berwick, East Africa, Hong Kong, “Matchmaker” Nato
 	     squadron to Scandinavia and West Indies.   During the Beira Patrol, she
 	     stopped and arrested the SS Manuella for attempting to run the oil blockade
 	     off Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) at Easter 1966.
1967         Lieutenants’ course, Greenwich 
1968 - 71    Collingwood /ASWE, Portsdown: Designed and delivered the first Type 909 
             missile guidance radar courses.
1971         Retired as Lieut. Commander (just).

1971 - 73   Kent Automation Systems – training manager.   Taught middle-aged
            businessmen how to program DEC PDP 8s and PDP 11s to control power
            stations and other real time processes.
1973 - 74   Computer Technology Ltd. - salesman
1974 - 83   Data General Corporation – sales, Nova and Eclipse.
 	    Once drove CEO Ed de Castro in London!  Final 2 years as sales manager in
 	    City of London office.
1985	    Allied Dunbar.  Life insurance agent based in Norwich.
1987 - 93   Data General Corp (again) based in Ottawa
1994        Investors Group, Ottawa.  Financial planning consultant (#1 job 
            satisfaction career in North America!)
2017	    Retired from Investors Group. See final archived page
	    Missionary to youth and children in Worcester, South Africa. More information.
2022 	    Retired missionary, back in Canada
- present	   

I met Penny at a Cambridge party when our eyes met “across a crowded room.” (In that same era I bought my first electric guitar.) Four years later, 1965, we married. She flew indulgence to Singapore and Hong Kong while I was in Berwick and then courageously returned to UK by train via the Trans Siberian Railway. In Berwick I produced a regular music program broadcast over the SRE, and still have sample recordings. We bought Parkside Cottage in Wickham in 1967. James was born in 1968 and Debbie in 1970. In 1969 I attended the Isle of Wight pop festival headlined by Bob Dylan. With a young family this was the right time for me to leave the R.N. and seek employment in industry while still young. In 1974, we moved to Sheringham, Norwich, though my job was still centred in London. We bought a Mirror dinghy and learned to sail having never done so in the Navy. On 19 June 1984, I went to the Luis Palau Mission to London and regained my Christian faith, making this the most important event in my life. After promotion to sales management in DG, with the need to be in London Mon – Fri, our marriage was strained by this and other issues, and we divorced in 1986.

6 April 1987 I flew from Norwich to Toronto to start a new life in Canada re-joining Data General in the Ottawa office, living in Kanata with my new love Annmarie, a pioneer Kanatian since 1968, and we were married 7 July 1990. In 1991 through a friend of Annmarie’s we became distributors in the skin care and nutrition company Nu Skin, a decision that benefits us to this day and has contributed to the health that I enjoy, still using many Nu Skin products (and earning commissions). In 1995 a Nu Skin friend took me to see a demonstration of the World Wide Web and I was hooked. Began my web site.

In 1997 I took the Alpha course, and it rang so true, building on what I had heard from Luis Palau. Jesus assumed his rightful place in my life. However, this was not a panacea and our marriage was dissolved October 1998. On 11 March 1998 I had received an e-mail to The Moderator site which I had set up to document sad happenings in the United Church of Canada. The message came from one Laurie-Ann Zachar, who used the site as a source of information for her M.Div. studies at Tyndale Seminary. 4 months and hundreds of e-mails later we met and spoke for the first time – and two months later I asked this gentle angel, 20 years my junior, to be my (third) bride. We were married 18 June 1999.

In 1994, James had married Kathy, whom he met in Texas on his advanced pilot training on the Euro-Nato course. Flight Lieut. James Copple R.A.F. spent two years in Pakistan training PAF flying instructors, and is now (2022) in Las Vegas as a drone pilot trainer, still with the RAF. On 27 August 2015 Kathy gave birth to Sagan, my second grandchild. We are in touch with them regularly via video, but have visited them in person both in Las Vegas in 2012 and New Mexico in 2015 and 2017. Debbie had married Andrew in 1988, had a daughter Jasmin, was divorced, then married Bryan, who sadly died. Debbie died in 2015, probably from an overdose of prescription drugs. Jasmin was my first grandchild, and has three children, living in Norfolk. I last saw her in August 2005.

From my Dartmouth time I can still tie a bowline with one hand (and only with one hand) and fold my clothes neatly in a drawer, and have used both skills from time to time. I have been a personal financial consultant since 1994 helping folk make better financial decisions and plan for their futures. Laurie-Ann and I share many interests, first and foremost our Christian faith: she is a missionary and in 2005 I accompanied her on a short-term mission in Western Kenya. We were Alpha advisors in Ottawa. I presided over the Anglican Gathering of Ottawa, a breakaway group from the errant Anglican Church of Canada. We both love music – when we married two large Beatles collections merged; I had founded the Ottawa Beatles Site in 1996. We co-hosted two weekly radio music programs on community radio. We play music together, often in public including the local prison where we volunteered every Sunday afternoon. We are both drenched in all aspects of the Internet, with a large web presence. I love audiobooks and have listened to hundreds in the last 20 years. I can’t remember ever being bored.

In late August 2008 I received an e-mail from Rob Walmsley after I had been “found” by the reunion committee with the help of Google. I was able to arrange to attend the terrific event at Dartmouth 12-14 September 2008, so you will understand why this, my story, is on-line having been too late for publication in “Fifty Years On” which contains everyone else's stories. For me it is an honour indeed to be appended virtually to such illustrious former colleagues who have achieved so much in the time since we first met. If you want to check further into the Copple philosophy and activities you know what to do: type me into Google.