All over Britain you’ll find park benches donated to the community by relatives. They are there in memory of a deceased loved one. The person may have died a natural death, have been killed or have died in an accident. Passers taking place on such a bench to enjoy the sunshine or eat a sandwich, seldom notice the name plaque. That was very clear in the port of the English coastal town of Brixham.
There are two benches there in memory of Mark Tyler. On each of the two is a sign that read: "In memory of Mark Tyler. Lost at sea 12-4-85 ". One bench was donated by his parents, the other by his grandparents. Each year on April 12 they place flowers on the benches to commemorate the sad date. They do so now for 32 years. After some googling you find photographic evidence on the internet of the laying of flowers. These are pictures of tourists. For the locals they are simply benches at the harbor where you can smoke a cigarette or just relax in the sun. In April, there is less space to sit.
It took me some time to find out what exactly happened on that day in April 1985. Mark was 17 years old and had just finished Brixham Community College. His friend Mark Lane [21] had a fishing boat, the 23ft crabber 'My Emma’. The rugged boat bore the name of his girlfriend. Lane had asked his friend Mark on April 11 to help him lay ‘crabpots'. Those are the big round fishing wheels net. On board was their mutual friend Stuart Dutton [20]. In the future they probably wanted to make their job of crab fishing. At about 1pm the crabber mysteriously started to take water on. This happened so fast that the boat sank within minutes and the crew were unable to send a radio message. Stuart is the only survivor of the shipwreck because he managed to get into the life raft. Stuart set off a parachute flare, the second one failed to work. Stuart blacked out. He was found 20 hours later in a distressed state aboard the life raft, nine and a half miles off Berry Head. Both Mark's drowned. The parents of Mark Tyler now dedicate their lives to the care of foster children �