Stanley Goddard was born into humble stock in Lincolnshire in 1925. The son of a deep-sea fisherman, his childhood was hard but not without compensations and when he left for Egypt to do his National Service, he was not only endowed with a keen fascination for nature, history and geography, but was also a capable, enthusiastic photographer. It was a passion that would sustain him throughout his working life as a steel erector/ steeplejack and eventually bring him to Ireland where all his interests could be realized in one place, Kenmare. Though he lived most of his life in Farnborough in Hampshire, it was in Kenmare that he found a wife, in Kenmare that he built a home, in Kenmare where he found soulful salvation and in Kenmare where he eventually found eternal rest in 1998.