Francis Chichester

Sir Francis Charles Chichester KBE (17 September 1901 – 26 August 1972) was a British pioneering aviator and solo sailor. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for becoming the first person to sail single-handed around the world by the clipper route and the fastest circumnavigator, in nine months and one day overall in 1966–67.

Quotes

• I lost my health and the gallstone trouble returned. A doctor, urgently summoned, wanted to operate at once, but once again my wife was convinced that this would be the wrong thing to do. It was then that I met Dr. Gordon Latto, who had become so impressed by the efficacy of nature cure methods that he had switched over almost completely from his orthodox practice to natural healing. He said that he could stop the gallstone from forming, but that I must go on a strict vegetarian diet for a year, besides knocking off drink and tobacco (which he said was worse than drink). This was a tough regime; the gallstones could not survive it. I did, however, and at the end of the period I found that I was also cured of smoking, and that the vegetarian diet suited me so well that I have preferred it ever since.
  • "Keeping Fit With Sir Francis Chichester", Esquire (June 1968); as quoted in Rynn Berry, The Vegetarians (Brookline, MA: Autumn Press, 1979), p. 122.