Captain Alan Tate - Telegraph Tate was awarded an immediate MC which was presented to him on his 20th birthday by Field Marshal Montgomery. Alan Tate was born on February 25 1925 in Sunderland, the only son of a shipyard worker, Samuel Tate, and an under-housemaid, Janet. He was educated at Bede Grammar School, and holidays were spent at a wooden hut which his father had built in Swaledale and where Alan learned to skin rabbits. He joined the Royal Marines in 1942 at Deal and trained at Achnacarry and on Snowdon. A few days after the Normandy landings he joined 45 Commando as one of the replacements for the heavy casualties which the Royal Marines had suffered since D-Day. He took part in the advance through France and Holland and later served in the Far East, returning by fast liner in 1946 in time to catch the first day of term at Durham University. There he read Architecture and was amongst the first group of eight graduates on a new course called "Town Planning." He worked on the development of the new towns of Newton Aycliffe and Peterlee, and later in Edinburgh, before joining Bovis as director of recruitment. In 1957 he was invited to join the National Capital Commission in Ottawa, Canada, as its chief architect. There he lined the avenues with beds of tulips which have since become a tourist attraction. Canada suited Tate, and he revelled in weekend flights in seaplanes, fishing on the lakes, ice-skating, building igloos, and clearing the flooded streets when the big thaw came. However, he never forgot his northern roots or his love of England, and returned as a senior partner with Healey and Baker to head its planning department, before being headhunted by Costains. He also lectured at Cambridge, and was president of the Incorporated Society of Valuers, Surveyors and Auctioneers in 1989-90. He frequently returned to the Dutch town of Linne, which 45 Commando had liberated, and where there is a museum display about the Belle Isle incident. Locals remembered him fondly for dancing in the square to the sound of the town's oompah band. He used to thrill his grandchildren by drawing his commando knife to sharpen their colouring pencils. Alan Tate married, first, Joyce Maughan. He is survived by his second wife, the former Miriam Ferry, and a son and daughter of his first marriage. Captain Alan Tate, born February 25 1925, died September 24 2012