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Ken McDonald
Article Highlights
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Career after the War
Career after the War
After the War McDonald served for 18 months in the Band of HMS
Daedalus. Next, McDonald was drafted to the Royal Naval School of Music
in Burford, Oxfordshire. It was there that he met his wife, Mary, who
was then serving in the Women's Land Army. The couple married in 1948.
He next served in the cruiser HMS Bermuda, flagship of the South
Atlantic Station. McDonald gained his LRAM (Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music) diploma and the silver medal
of the Worshipful Company of Musicians which all helped in his eventual
promotion to Bandmaster.
From 1954 until 1957 McDonald again served in HMS Daedalus before
serving on his last ship, HMS Eagle. In 1958 McDonald and his wife
emigrated to Rhodesia after his retirement from the Royal Marines Band
Service where Ken served in the Rhodesian Army as a Director of Music.
In 1961 he moved to Australia for three years before returning to
Rhodesia.
McDonald, by now a Major, retired from the renamed Zimbabwe National
Army and returned to Gosport. After losing his wife from a long illness
in 2004 McDonald’s health deteriorated and he died on 23 February 2006
in St Mary's Hospital, Portsmouth.
