Martin 'Ginge' Kinley

If you cut our Branch chairman, salt water will pour out.  Martin 'Ginge' Kinley was born and bred in Hampshire and is Royal Navy through and through.

He was born in Southampton in July 1960 and educated within the City at Glenfield Infant School, Beechwood Junior School and at Bitterne Park Community School.

Having signed on at the age of sixteen 'Ginge' completed 24-years under the white duster, finally stepping ashore in July 2000.

He completed his basic training at HMS Raleigh before moving on to HMS Sultan, the engineering training school. After undergoing further marine training he joined his first ship, HMS Fearless, in 1977.

'Ginge' sailed to the South Atlantic in April 1982 when the goverment dispatched a naval task force to engage Argentine forces that had invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.

After the Falklands war he served on HMS Bulldog, the seventh Royal Navy ship to carry that name. She was a coastal survey ship that was sold for conversion to a private yacht after 'Ginge' returned to civilian life.

An artificer, a marine engineering mechanic by trade, 'Ginge, was a Chief Petty Officer when he finally left the Navy in 2000.

He didn't move far from the water, working for Sunseeker and in Southampton Docks before moving to Fawley where he works for a contractor at the Exxon Mobile Refinery.

'Ginge' is not short of hobbies and interests including his work as chairman of the Copythorne & District Royal British Legion Branch but his favourite occupation is spending time with his wife Helen and sons Dillon and Josh.

 'Ginge' can be contacted by email on:-     copythorne.chairman@rbl.community