To Stan from Flo’ – a 90-year-old Love Story that neither Time nor Tide could Tarnish

Recently, I was doing some research on the web and literally ‘tripped’ over the following

article written by John Ross which appeared in the September 4, 2008 edition of The Scotsman.  What first caught my eye was that the diver at the centre of the story has the same name as yours truly.  Also, another Kish SAC member has a similar story from just a few years ago when a similar item found in shallow water at Sandycove.  However, I will confine myself to the story of Stanley Cubiss and the

 

On 12 January, 1918, HMS Opal joined her sister ship HMS Narboroughand the light in a night patrol to hunt German warships.  Sometime later, in near zero visibility in one of the most violent storms to hit Orkney, Boadicea ordered the Opal and Narborough back to Scapa Flow.  A garbled message was laterreceived, followed by silence.  The ships were found two days later with only one survivor, and later broke up.  A crew member of the Opal, 25-year-old Stanley Cubiss had been married to Florence for less than a year when he perished with 187 other men when HMS Opal crashed into rocks at Windwick Bay, South Ronaldsay.  When he perished in the engine room, he was wearing a ring Florence had given him in March 1916.

For the next 89 years the gold band lay buried on the seabed until 2007, it was found by chance by a diver, Peter Brady, who at first thought it was a worthless piece of plumbing from the wreck.  ““I was just scraping around in the sand when it suddenly popped up.  At first I thought it was the sort of copper pipe fitting a plumber might use. But I put it on my finger and brought it up to the surface for a closer look. And that’s when I noticed the hallmark and realised this was something pretty special.”  Back on the dive boat, it was realised that it was a gold ring in near perfect condition bearing the inscription “To Stanley from Flo, March 1916″.  Peter’s dive buddy, Bob Hamilton later said “When we saw it the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and the happy mood on the boat changed to something far more sombre.  It seemed incredible Peter should have found something so small and so perfect – and that the inscription should still be so clearly visible.”  When it was realised it was a poignant connection to one of the drowned crew and his widowed sweetheart, the two divers launched an investigation.

After finding the ship’s casualty list on the internet, the divers found there were two Stanleys on board, one of whom was Ernest Stanley Cubiss, husband of Florence.  The list also mentioned he was from Keighley, West Yorkshire.  The pair eventually tracked down Stanley’s nephew, Malcolm Cubiss, a retired brigadier, who lived near York.  On September 3^rd 2008, the ring was back in Orkney as Malcolm donated it along with other artifacts he had including photographs and medals, to the Scapa Flow Visitor Centre on the Orkney island of Hoy.  He said “If I had kept this ring which was kindly offered to me I would have only put it in a drawer, and in time it would have been thrown out or sold.”

HMS Opal had a short, eventful life that ended just two and a half years after she was built in 1915. The destroyer served with the Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow, and took part in the Battle of Jutland.

 

What happened to Florence?  Well, she lived for many more years and died in 1971 aged 82.

 

 

 

Peter Brady

(not the Peter Brady in the story)

7^th December 2011