Edward Anthony (Tony) Youlten: Life began for Edward Anthony (Tony) Youlten as German bombs were dropping on his native north London during the second World War. It ended earlier this month when he died in hospital after a short illness.
His home for nearly 40 years had been a cabin cruiser on Lough Corrib, Co Galway. Tony was just 19 years of age, working on the London railways, when the 44,000-acre lake first weaved its spell over him. Enchantment lasted. He eventually moved to Ireland and in 1971, took up residency in a houseboat on the northern shore, as happy as any character in The Wind in the Willows.
As a young man in London, he trained as a steam train driver. His hobby was fishing and he used to go to the Scottish rivers. But all changed when he took a holiday in Cong, on the Mayo/Galway border. So smitten was he by the landscape and people of north Connemara that he resolved to live there.
He returned to London briefly to sort out his affairs and to say goodbye to his mother.
Tony worked variously in the Cong area as a maintenance man at Ashford Castle and at Philbin's boatyard. He fished the lake and developed his boat-building skills. He even used to make his own aluminium fly reels.
He first started living on a lakeboat in 1971. In the late 1990s he set up house on the Hollandia, a six-berther equipped with a shower. The living area was carpeted and heated, the kitchen units and cooking utensils neatly tucked away. There was no television.
"I don't miss living in a house," Tony told a local reporter in the late summer of 2001. "I have been living on the water for the past 30 years. It's second nature to me. I love it."
Tony Youlten got the nickname "the harbour master" at Lisloughrey pier and, over the years, saved many boats for their owners when they pulled their moorings in a storm.
He was an avid angler and spent many days on the lake with his great friend, Seán Ryan. He specialised in fishing for big trout on summer evenings and trolling the north shore for salmon.
Tony's skill as a boatman was tested in the summer of 2001 when he rescued 17 German students after their kayaks capsized. He was later contacted by the German ambassador who informed him his government wished to confer him with the Order of Merit.
His then 89-year-old mother and his brother made the trip to Ireland from Britain for the presentation ceremony.
Tony Youlten loved and respected Lough Corrib in equal measure. As a skilled boatman, he knew the risks the 44,000-acre posed, not just to teenage kayakers.
"The lake can be treacherous," he said in an interview some years ago. "One minute it can be calm, the next dangerously choppy."
It pained him that youngsters often canoed across the lake from Cong, sometimes as far as Oughterard or Maam, without informing the rescue authorities of their presence and when they expected to return.
During the 1970s, Tony Youlten converted to Catholicism and actually temporarily abandoned his beloved lake to study for a new life as a Christian Brother.
But he was soon back on Lough Corrib, telling friends he found the religious life too claustrophobic. He said he hadn't the courage to tell the superior and just "hopped the wall" without saying anything.
Tony Youlten struck up a sincere relationship with many people in the Cong area. His exemplary devotion to two local men in their final illnesses was recalled at his funeral.
Said one friend on his passing: "Those who were privileged to spend some time and share some stories and a little wine with this extraordinary man were indeed lucky. He never really desired money. As long has he had enough to live in the pure environment of 'my Corrib' that was all he wanted."
Tony Youlten: born January 30th 1937; died November 14th 2007.