While on a visit to his grandmother in Bideford, a six-foot two-inch American student, wearing an all-white naval uniform, marched along the Quay on Friday evening to make a little bit of history.

When 17 year old Harding Dies, from Virginia, formally boarded Bideford Sea Cadets’ training ship Bideford he is believed to have become the first member of the United States Naval Sea Cadet Corps to be so received in this country.

At the quayside, Harding, a senior apprentice in the US Corps, was met by Lieut-Cmdr Tome Rowe, head of Bideford Sea Cadets, and members of the unit.

Harding is no stranger to Bideford. Before emigrating in 1938 to marry Mr Douglas Dies, a public relations man for the US Department of Agriculture, his mother was Miss Mary Harding, whose father, the late Mr C S F Harding, was for many years headmaster of what is now Bideford County Secondary School. Her mother, Mrs Lilian Harding, lives in Abbotsham Road, and it is with his grandmother that Harding is staying for a short while on this his fourth visit to Bideford. When eight, he spent a summer term at Grenville College.

Harding is in this country with other students of the National Cathedral School in Washington to carry out archaeological excavations on the site of a Roman palace at Chichester. He returns to his home in Belle Vue Boulevard, Alexandria, on August 23rd.

On board the ceremonially flagged TS Bideford, Harding with a Southern drawl, told the Gazette “I enjoy Bideford very much. I know a lot of people here.” He was impressed by the ship. “It’s very well kept”, he said; “freshly painted and all the brass is polished.”

Article dated 20 August 1965