John Cedric McCarthy

John C. McCarthy, 84

GREAT YARMOUTH, England - John Cedric McCarthy, 84, died from complications of advanced Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, in James Paget Hospital, Great Yarmouth, England, on the morning of Jan. 8, 2018.

He leaves behind four children, 13 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren.

Though born in Great Yarmouth, England, in 1933, John spent his childhood in London during World War II. John did his national service in the conflict in Malaysia's jungles alongside Iban trackers and Gurkhas, while the rest of his unit went to the Korean War. He married his teenage sweetheart, Wendy Vincent, in 1956 on his birthday and soon had four children.

When work wasn't available, he sometimes hitchhiked 200 miles to work, dressed in a three-piece business suit, which assured rides. Eventually John became an electrical engineer and worked at Sizewell nuclear power station and television studios in Cambridge. He then worked on oil rigs and gas platforms in the North Sea, off the coast of Labrador and off the coast of Africa.

In the 1970s he divorced his wife, moved to Ireland. He continued to work in oil exploration, ran a small restaurant in Kinsale, opened a coffee shop called The Brief outside the Cork courthouse, and ran a record shop with his partner, Ursula Murphy, in Cork. A bad supply helicopter crash into the sea and resulting loss of life convinced John to quit. So he turned a farm in Glengariff into a timeshare to sell to Americans wishing to connect with their Irish heritage.

The project took him to Portland, Maine, where his friend, David Pitt, ran a shop called Stones and Stuff in the Old Port area and where he met Louise Rocha in 1982. They married in 1986. John enrolled at the University of Maine and studied photography with Jere Dewaters.

The couple bought a 40-foot wooden sailboat in 1989 and moved into it in 1992 before attempting to sail across the Atlantic. An unsuccessful attempt ended in a lightning strike that fried their electrical gear miles off Port Clyde, Nova Scotia. They tried to cross again the following June, in 1993, only to run before a hurricane and days of gales halfway across. They lost the top 40 feet of their mast alongside an oil tanker and were forced to abandon their sailboat. They finished the crossing in the tanker which dropped them off in Grangemouth, Scotland.

John and Louise made their way down to Norwich, where he became the caretaker of the King of Hearts arts center and began photographing again. His new career was cut short by the bad health of Louise's mother. In 1998, the couple moved back to the United States to look after her.

Meanwhile, arthritis, surgeries and essential tremor began to limit John's ability to work at the Oak Leaf Inn, or take pictures. Eventually, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. John and Louise returned to England so that he could spend his last days with his children.