At the age of 85, Thomas William Gould, VC is President Emeritus of the International Submarine Association, takes great pleasure in driving his SAAB, and refuses to be a liability to anybody! He is the last Freemason decorated with the Victoria Cross to be active today.
    I came to know him during the many reunions of the Victoria Cross & George Cross Association that I attended with my late husband Phillip.
    As such, I was not surprised when he telephoned me from his home in Peterborough after reading my article “Beyond The Five Points” in the Summer Issue of Freemasonry Today.
    He has maintained his sense of humour and talked lovingly of his time in submarines. And old habits die hard, too – I declined the rum he offered me, of which he partakes every day at 11 am.
    As a Petty Officer on HM Submarine Thrasher, his Victoria Cross is Gazetted 9th June 1942.
    On 16th February 1942, just outside Suda Bay, north of Crete, Thrasher, in broad daylight, attacked and sank a heavily escorted enemy supply ship. Thrasher was immediately attacked by depth charges and bombed by aircraft. She was able to lie low through the bombing, and when she surfaced after dark, two unexploded bombs were discovered in the gun casing.
    Lieutenant Peter Roberts and Petty Officer Tommy Gould volunteered to remove the bombs, which were of a type unknown to them. Tommy says: “The first bomb was manhandled over the side without too much difficulty, but the second was lying in a very confined space and we had to approach it lying full length.
    “I lay on my back, holding the bomb in my arms while Lieutenant Roberts dragged me along by my shoulders. It was 40 minutes before we got the bomb clear and dropped it into the sea.”
    During this time the submarine was rolling heavily, and every time the bomb moved there was a loud twanging noise like a broken spring, which added nothing to their peace of mind.
    The deed was all the more gallant, as Thrasher's presence was known to the enemy, she was close to the coast and in waters where patrols were known to be active day and night.
    Gould and Roberts also knew there was a very great chance that the submarine might have to crash dive while they were still in the casing.
    He says: “If the submarine had dived, it would have been the end of both of us. But we can line up with Nelson on that score, I think, because it was the change of wind that saved Nelson's career, a wind change to his advantage.
    “And it was the wind that didn't blow that saved our lives. It was a moonlight night, but there was a cloud over the moon so we couldn't be seen. Our area was in darkness. Had the wind come up and blown the cloud aside, we would have been seen, and we would have dived.”
    Three years after his heroic action, Tommy saw action of another kind when he was working on converting an old Basin that was used by the RAF, to one suitable for use by the Navy. He had asked for the use of three vehicles – three motor cars – but instead was sent motor cycles with boxes on the sides.
    This was not satisfactory, and one night, as he was working in the dark with only hooded lights and not able to see high in front of him, disaster struck.
    It was reckoned that a sea gull or something similar must have fluttered in front of him and sent him flying through three or four coils of barbed wire. He was rescued with some difficulty and eventually ended up at an RAF Signals base in the Orkneys, where his injuries were revealed as a fractured metastasis of the right foot and three fractures to the base of his skull. As a result, he was invalided out of the Navy in October 1945.
    He began life in civvy street as a business consultant for an American company, later becoming a director of his own company.
    Tommy is a founder member of the Victoria Cross Association (now the Victoria Cross & George Cross Association), and served as a committee member for many years. He is now living in Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.
    He became a mason in 1944 and is a member of Lord Charles Beresford Lodge 2404, Chatham; Aspiration Lodge 6086, London; Royal Naval Lodge 59, London and Chilton Mark 1538, Bedford.
    He thinks he is probably the oldest person to go through the chair of a Craft Lodge for the first time, as he was 80 years of age when he did so.
    Tommy is still is a very courageous man and has no intention of letting old age do what German bombs and errant seagulls could not – make him hang up his boots.