10 replies to this topic

[kayemod]

I'm slightly hesitant about launching this thread, as the motor racing connection is tenuous at best, but here goes. I posted on another thread, the Motor Sport one I think, on long-lived modelmakers, hoping among other things, that this phenomenal longevity might rub off on me. I'd not long before attended the funeral of a man who was my oldest friend in every sense of the word, Phil Smith who reached 93 in a distinguished and eventful life, he'd just merited a half-page obituary in The Daily Telegraph. Phil was a remarkably talented man, and among other things he was a model flying champion, and successful designer of countless models, many of which were sold in their thousands in kit form. I also mentioned Vic Smeed, in my opinion one of the greatest model designers ever, Vic flew Spitfires in WW2, produced probably a thousand different model designs of all types, edited magazines, wrote many books on the subject, and only left this mortal coil earlier this month at the age of 92. Another man who achieved fame in similar fields was Ron Moulton who died last October at the age of 87, and I last met Ron at Phil's funeral in June. Ron wrote many books on modelmaking subjects, and he also edited Aeromodeller magazine for over thirty years, and I was a little surprised to see a half-page obituary in The Times a week or so ago, four months after his death. I'm now at last coming to the tenuous motor racing connection, a photo appeared in this obituary, it depicted Ron holding one of his control line model planes, upon one wing of which is written in large letters the name of The Greatest Living Englishman, SIR STIRLING MOSS, and he's also holding a copy of the Robert Edwards biography. Now, as far as I know Ron had no motor racing involvement or connections, and I never heard him express an interest in the subject, so can anyone come up with a possible explanation for this?

[Allan Lupton]

A lot of names from my past, too, but so long ago I can't remember much - was Phil Smith connected with something called Veron, or have I got that wrong?
Ron as a contributor to Aeromodeller was well worth reading I always thought. I can't remember if it was he who coined the word "fetchermites" for the small boys who always seemed to appear with ones free-flight model after an OOS landing.
I stopped Aeromodelling when I went to de Havilland and the scale became 12 inches to the foot - but we did have the control-line speed champion of the day, Pete Wright, in one of the shops and he also did a few rallies.

[kayemod]

A lot of names from my past, too, but so long ago I can't remember much - was Phil Smith connected with something called Veron, or have I got that wrong?

Yes, that's Phil, he was responsible for just about everything that Veron produced, he found the inspiration, did the design, built and flew/sailed the prototype, designed the tooling for die-cutting and all the other parts, drew the plan and instructions, drew the box design, and created the adverts, and that was in addition to all his other day to day work. In between this, among other things, he was flown regularly to Tehran in the Presidential 707 to give model flying lessons to the Shah's sons. As well as this, Phil was one of the nicest people I've ever known, a true gentleman in every sense of the word, not many left like him, and Ron Moulton was just as nice, and equally talented in other ways.

If anyone is interested, I could e-mail Phil's obituary (written by Ron) to anyone who PMs me an e-mail address.

[Derwent Motorsport]

Did not Vic Smeed edit Model Maker/Model Cars in the late 60s to mid seventies? It was when my motorsport was with 1/32 slot cars.

[kayemod]

Did not Vic Smeed edit Model Maker/Model Cars in the late 60s to mid seventies? It was when my motorsport was with 1/32 slot cars.

Yes indeed, Vic was that man, but he did an awful lot of other things beside that.

[Paglesham]

There aren't many of us who haven't had a Veron Nipper or a Veron boat of some kind and indeed Mr. Smith was still selling plans right up to his sad death. There is a very active "retro" movement in model aircraft and boats these days whereby people want the old stuff that dad built for them, but of course the kits no longer exist, though even that is being changed bit by bit.

R.G. "Ron" Moulton was an equally big, perhaps better known name in the world of working models.

Quite why Sir Stirl's name is on the wing of a control line plane, I can't think. Perhaps he was a closet model flyer?

Thanks for the memories.
Martin

[CometZero]

Dear all,
Hopefully I can throw some light on this for you.
Ron Moulton was my father, and those in the modelling world will have known of him.
The obit in the Times came along after I was contacted by them for details of my father's life and career, and for it they requested photographs of Ron with model aircraft. As many who knew him will know, most of the time he was on the other side of the camera taking pictures of others with their models, so our photo library to choose from was rather limited at short notice.
However, we did have a few to send and the Times selected this one from them.
The model is in fact not Ron's, but one belonging to a friend of his. The picture was taken at Old Warden which was a place he loved to fly, and the model is as you say a control line one, so for these 2 reasons it was a good choice.
So the connection with Sir Stirling? This comes in 2 ways-
Firstly, the model belongs to Ron's friend David Kinsella, who in turn knows Sir Sterling. David has both modelling and motor racing connections, and presented the book to Ron.
Secondly, Sir Stirling it seems used to be a modeller and would have met Ron way back, together with H J Nicholls.

I hope this explains the mystery for you.

Keep up the spirit of model flying, I only wish I had the time myself- though now I have a stack of balsa perhaps I should..

ps- for those who may not know, sadly Vic Smeed also passed away earlier this year- another great loss to the aeromodelling world

[kayemod]

Dear all,
Hopefully I can throw some light on this for you.
Ron Moulton was my father, and those in the modelling world will have known of him.

Truly, TNF is a most remarkable place, its reach is almost infinite.

Thanks very much for enlightening us Jonathan, it was your sister Dinah who phoned to tell me about your Dad's death, but welcome to the forum, and I hope you'll be back sometime.

[RobertE]

Stirling is (or used to be) actually a rather keen model builder. There's a picture in the biog. of he and Herb Jones messing about on Nassau with a large scale P38 Lightning. His house is also replete with several large scale racing cars. I'll ask him when I next speak to him whether he built them himself or he had a connection with the illustrious Mr. Moulton.

[Ted Walker]

I bought Rons archive (75 boxes plus negatives) at auction yesterday, Dont know what to do with it but seemed a good idea !!!!!!!!!!!!

[D-Type]

I bought Rons archive (75 boxes plus negatives) at auction yesterday, Dont know what to do with it but seemed a good idea !!!!!!!!!!!!

"Ferret Flying Fotos" has a nice ring to it

Or if you want to be trendy, how about "Flying Ferret Fotos"?