A Life Forged in the Navy

My Uncle Phil Henley was a man shaped by discipline, resilience, and a steadfast sense of duty. Born into a working-class family in Portsmouth, he began his career in the Navy as a seaman and rose through the ranks to retire as a distinguished commander. His story wasn’t one of privilege—it was one of earned respect, forged through hardship.

During World War II, Phil’s ship was torpedoed and sank beneath him. He found himself stranded in the open sea, helpless against the vastness of the water. But he was rescued, pulled from the abyss, carrying with him a new understanding of survival—an experience that would later influence the choices he made in the face of corruption.

The Move to The Dale: A Childhood Untouched by Time

In the early 1960s, Phil and Joan moved to The Dale, Purbrook—a large house with a sprawling garden, ideal for raising their children, Phillip and Sylvia. It became a central meeting place for family, where innocence thrived, and friendships flourished.

I was just a baby at the time, too young to know of the visits my mother made with my older brothers, John and Keith. But they knew The Dale well. Their childhood was intertwined with Phillip and Sylvia, and another boy who lived nearby—David Connor.

Cowboys and Indians was their chosen game, played in the woods behind the houses. They ran through the trees, ducking behind imagined forts, reveling in the simplicity of childhood adventures. But none of them could have foreseen what they would grow into—how their bonds, once innocent, would later shape the mechanisms of power and control. Through Connor's abuse of influence, the childhood friendships that had once been harmless became tangled in a web of manipulation, silence, and allegiance.

A Passion for Photography

Some of my fondest memories of Uncle Phil involve sitting in his house, watching films on his cine projector. The flickering images of his travels seemed almost mythical to me—windows into a world beyond the one I knew.

The Floyds and Their Place in Our Family

The Floyds also lived nearby in The Dale, their presence another thread in this tightly woven tapestry of childhood and familiarity. As a Navy family, they shared a bond with Phil and Joan—a connection built on shared experience, tradition, and an understanding that stretched beyond words.

By a strange coincidence, at the same time in Southsea Portsmouth, Jacky Floyd, a member of the same Floyd family, lived next door to Barbara Nicholson with her father, Dr. Floyd. At the time, there was nothing remarkable about it. They were just another part of the world that surrounded us. But as I later came to understand, their histories and connections would form the foundation of something far more insidious.

1974: The Turning Point

The year is 1974. I am just seventeen years old, taking my first step in my career as a photographer at Portsmouth Photographic Centre, a shop owned by Sidney Richman.

I vividly remember my first morning at the shop. I was greeted by Ken Prestige who once worked for Sidney, he was there to give me a friendly warning about Sidney and his temper. He said, "Listen, Sidney's okay to work with, but sometimes he has such a temper that he'll just blow his top at you for nothing. Just take no notice of this, because the next day, you'll find he’s forgotten all about it, as if nothing happened. Just keep your cool when it happens, and everything will be okay."

Indeed I took Kens advise and so never paid much attention to his outbursts, knowing they would be forgotten the next day

Another important thing I learned about Sidney was that he was a Freemason—a prominent figure in the Portsmouth branch. When I asked him about it, he simply replied, "There are certain things in life you won’t know about, and this is one of them."

But Sidney’s office unlike Sydney could not keep secrets because it was filled with Freemasonry-related books. One detailed diagrams of every Freemasonry branch in the UK, and another contained ornate, flowery writing that made little sense to me—reminiscent of Aleister Crowley’s style. This wasn’t my cup of tea; I preferred books by Colin Wilson on the occult, as they were factual, interesting, and logical.

Being high up in the Freemasons, Sidney often had visits from “important” people—solicitors, counsellors, and others—who held secretive meetings in his office. They would whisper so I couldn’t hear their discussions.

Phil’s Appointment & The Weight of the Chamber’s Corruption

Uncle Phil had only just retired from the Navy when he landed an appointment almost immediately as Secretary of the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce.

This was a moment of celebration for our family—a prestigious role that solidified his place in the business world. But behind the congratulatory smiles and formal welcomes, would not last long.

When I casually mentioned Uncle Phil’s new position to Sidney Richman at work. Sidney wasn’t surprised at all—in fact it seemed to me he already knew my uncle and the job he had just got. This in fact surprised me. But Sidney’s face showed something else. Disbelief. Shock. Horror. As though the idea of someone like Commander Henley—a naval commander could be related in some way to me, just a working-class lad from a working class family.

Uncle Phil then used to regularly come to the shop buying cine equipment and film, they seemed to get on well with one another, Sidney was also very interested in his new position on land with the Chamber of Commerce.

The Moment of Truth

Uncovering the Corruption

And then, one morning, Uncle Phil arrived with a weight behind his words.

“You know, Sidney, I had to do it,” he said. “There was no other way out of this one.”

Sidney smiled, but I could see that it wasn’t real. His expression didn’t match the words that followed—his forced understanding, his barely concealed resentment.

When Phil left the shop, Sidney stormed into his office, avoiding eye contact with me. So that was when I had began to learn the truth—Uncle Phil had uncovered something crooked at the Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce and had blown the whistle, reporting it to the authorities.

For weeks afterward, solicitors and other important people streamed into Sidney’s office, whispering about what Uncle Phil had done. Eventually, the situation was swept under the rug, and Uncle Phil was fired from his job, officially on grounds of incompetence—or so Sidney told me.

For Sidney to suggest incompetence was ridiculous. He was, after all, just a shopkeeper with a qualification in pharmacy—not someone who had navigated warships, led crews, fought in the second world war or risen from seaman through the ranks of the Navy to Commander. If anyone understood the weight of responsibility, the ability to command and make critical decisions, it was Phil—not Sidney.

Uncle Phil never visited the shop again, and I moved forward with my plans to travel the world.

A Conversation That Stung More Than the Truth

Years passed before we spoke about it again. It wasn’t until 1998—when Phil and Joan visited my parents—that I finally asked him about it.

So late that night, I brought up the topic of what had occurred during his time at the Chamber of Commerce. He said it was the “bloody Freemasons in the town they are all so bloody well corrupt their the ones who had orchestrated my downfall. ”Then, looking at me, he added, “Paul, I always thought you were a bit of a yob and you played a part in this, but you’re not a yob at all, you are intelligent as you seem to understand this".

I was stunned. Hurt, even. But in that moment, I understood why he had spent so much of his life believing that about me.

Maybe, from his perspective, I had seemed suspicious—after all, I had been working for Sidney Richman, a man deeply embedded in the Freemasons.

Or maybe it was my brothers, John and Keith, who had fed him those thoughts—men who had always seen me differently, always carried a quiet rivalry toward me, perhaps even envied the life I had chosen.

I was taken aback and a little hurt by his comment, but I understood there were two reasons why he had thought that about me for most of his life:

Family Rivalries and Perceptions

My older brothers, John and Keith Summerfield, had always been close—bound not just by blood but by the shared path they had taken as shipwrights at Portsmouth Dockyard, as well as playing together in a pop band.

They were men of structure, of routine, with families and responsibilities that kept their lives grounded

I was the odd one out, the black sheep of the family. My brothers were shipwrights, and I was a photographer. They had their lives mapped out, while I was still searching for mine. I was the one who had chosen to break free from the mold of just building ships I wanted to sail on them to explore my the world and find my own way.

The Freemasons and Their Grip on Power

Reflecting on the Freemasons’ role in all of this, it became clear that their power was rooted in collective unity—an unbreakable bond of loyalty and secrecy. Yet, while many followed blindly, unaware of the true impact of their actions, the inner circle—the true architects of control—understood exactly what they were doing. This divide, between the followers and the masterminds, not only shaped my family's fate but revealed a deeper truth about corruption, one that extended far beyond secret societies and into the very fabric of our courts.

Phil faced an impossible choice—close his eyes to the corruption surrounding him, or walk away and stay true to his conscience. I believe he made the right decision. While stepping back cost him dearly, it allowed him to hold onto his integrity, rather than becoming complicit in a system designed to serve only the powerful. Sometimes, resisting from within isn’t an option, and the only path to freedom is refusing to play their game at all.

When Phil stepped forward, he wasn’t just speaking out against corruption; he was threatening a system built on quiet agreements and unspoken rules. The Chamber of Commerce was merely one piece of a much larger puzzle, and exposing it meant disrupting the balance they had carefully maintained. The repercussions were swift, decisive, and designed to ensure no one else dared to follow his lead."

This divide between the Freemasons’ collective and their inner circle was a perfect example of how their secrecy and solidarity could shield them from accountability. They operated like a well-oiled machine, but it was the hands steering the ship—the inner circle—who controlled the direction and impact, often at the expense of those caught in their wake, like Uncle Phil.