11 replies to this topic

[Philip Whiteman]

Sad to see from today's Times obituary – nice piece, with a lovely picture of him sat astride the tender of one of his model steam locomotives – that Ted died on 21 May.

I was at school with Ted's younger son, Tony. If anyone has his contact details, for obvious reasons I'd appreciate a PM.

[Formula Once]

Sad news indeed. I always wondered what his F1-engine could have achieved given a proper chance. I mean, it did propel Courage's F2 Lotus past Gurney's Eagle and Stewart's BRM in testing, so it obviously had great potential.

[kayemod]

Sad to see from today's Times obituary – nice piece, with a lovely picture of him sat astride the tender of one of his model steam locomotives – that Ted died on 21 May.

Phil Smith, my oldest friend, in every sense of the word, died the day after Ted Martin, Ted reached 86, and Phil nearly 94. The two of them were good friends, until the drive became too much for him, Phil often drove up to see Ted, and he had an album full of photos of Ted's steam railway. Whoever wrote that Times obituary clearly hadn't seen this, and the pic of Ted astride one of his favourites gives no idea of it's scope. It's about a year since I last saw these photos, but from memory, he had at least 20 working live steam engines, all lovely pieces of work, 7" gauge I think, and the tracks filled his huge garden. There were cuttings, embankments, stations, stone bridges, all the signals worked, and there was an engine shed and workshop where he constructed and worked on his engines, mere words could never do justice to the quality and scale of his 'train set'. I never got the chance to see all this, I had invitations, but could never fit it in, and sadly, I never met Ted, who by all accounts was quite a character, and it goes without saying, an extraordinarily gifted engineer and craftsman.

The name will probably mean nothing to most on TNF, but my dear old friend Phil Smith was also a remarkable man. He was world famous (if you move in those kind of circles) as a model aeroplane designer, and he did virtually everything of note at a Bournemouth model manufacturing company called Veron, now long gone, but they were every bit as well known as Keil Kraft in their day, I bet there are a few here who can remember building Veron kits in years gone by.

Edited by kayemod, 19 June 2010 - 22:02.

[Macca]

I'm unable to see obits in the Times since they went subscription with their online version, so didn't know about Ted Martin; however I read Phil Smith's in the Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph...Phil-Smith.html

I heard that Ted had been ill from Allan Rennie,who was helped by Ted with parts for his Lotus 35-Martin, a replication of the Charles Lucas/Piers Courage car, which he was racing in HSCC events last year. After winning first time out at Snetterton, Allan took the car to Ted's and ran it up for him, and he was apparently delighted to see and hear it in anger.

Pictures of Ted Martin and his amazing garden railway can be found on pages 7 & 8 here:
http://www.pinewoodr...ess/issue22.pdf

RIP, fine engineers both.

Paul M

[kayemod]

I'm unable to see obits in the Times since they went subscription with their online version, so didn't know about Ted Martin; however I read Phil Smith's in the Telegraph:

Paul M

http://www.thetimes....icle2563010.ece

It sems I'm one of the favoured few. No idea if this is going to work, and seeing as they won't be bona fide paying subscribers, all who read this had better swallow it, or something, but here's Ted's obituary from today's Times.

I hadn't seen the Phil Smith one from the Telegraph, but there were one or two mistakes in that, they even got the date of death wrong, so let's hope that someone did a slightly better job for Ted.

Paul, I never had you down as a closet aeromodeller, or a closet anything come to that, you didn't know Phil did you?

Edited by kayemod, 19 June 2010 - 22:05.

[kayemod]

Well, success as far as I can tell, or at least the link works for me, though I am currently logged into The Times site. Someone set my mind at rest and tell me if it works for all you cheapskate non Times subscribers as well

[Tim Murray]

Doesn't work for me, but it might if I chose to accept their offer to register for a limited-period free preview of their new site.

[kayemod]

Doesn't work for me, but it might if I chose to accept their offer to register for a limited-period free preview of their new site.

That's odd, though I can't say I'm too surprised. I've logged out of The Times website, and the link still works for me, but Rupert Murdoch has evidently found a way of protecting his intellectual property from non-subscribers. If The Times are able to make a commercial success out of their subscriber-only site, I can see an awful lot of news and information providers following their example. However, an interesting precedent was set by The Financial Times, which has no connection with Murdoch of course. They went subscriber only a year or so ago, but if you had registered with them, or were on their mailing list before they started charging, you still get limited access free. I think I'm allowed to access ten articles a week, or something like that, and I don't think that's a special deal for Yorkshire-born skinflints like me.

[ReWind]

Sad to see from today's Times obituary that Ted died on 21 May.

Does it also reveal on which day he was born?

[kayemod]

Does it also reveal on which day he was born?

January 19th 1924.

[ReWind]

Wow, that was quick!
Many thanks.

[kayemod]

Wow, that was quick!
Many thanks.

Just luck, I happened to have a copy of last Saturday's Times in my office, but please don't expect that kind of service as a matter of course!