Page 11 - July August 2017

his own very high standard of modelling North American railroads, he also most graciously accepted commissions from fellow modellers to detail, paint, decal and weather their own North American locomotives!
During October and November 2009, Martin kindly weathered six of my Western Maryland diesels: GP9 #32, GP9 #41, F7A #57, F7A #62, GE44T #76 and BL2 #82.
Shortly after Martin’s passing on 29 April 2017, a Freemo event took place at Christow in Devon with a number of NMRA BR members present. A minute’s silence was held in his memory. I will be leading two further tributes at the 2017 NMRA BR Convention at Derby – at both the AGM and the Conference Dinner.
I very much hope that you will be able to join me then in thinking of Martin and his dear family and to remember the generosity of his gift of volunteering for the NMRA BR for over three and a half decades.
David McLaughlin
Martin was a lovely guy, a real gentleman and always
a pleasure to deal with. He first edited Roundhouse in May/June 1983 and then continued ever since, always producing it on time even when his wife Linda was seri- ously ill.
His skills in both painting and improving brass locos were renowned as I know from his fitting a complete new drive in my SP AC9 thus changing if from a noisy to whispering articulated. I shall also miss his regular calls to provide him with photos and lettering details for the latest SP loco he was painting.
Rai Fenton
Martin had been in his post as editor of Roundhouse for over 30 years when I became President so he knew how to produce a magazine (newsletter does not do it justice) for members.
It was therefore with some trepidation that I proposed that we have a bold new regular insert addressing all the
basic aspects of our hobby, every issue. Martin to his credit let us do it and we developed between us an easy way of working up the original draft for him to incorporate for typesetting and then off to the printers.
We must also not forget that, with the assistance of Terry Wynne, Martin also smoothly transitioned the printing from the original company in Lincolnshire to the new one near his home in Hove.That was shortly followed by a loss of our regular typesetter and Martin found an extremely effective work-around without any delay in publication. He just always had that knack, that comes only with years of experience, of knowing what to do and when to effect the best end result, a splendid members’ magazine that was and still is the envy of the NMRA world.
Roundhouse is Martin’s legacy to us all.
Mike Arnold
I suspect that anything I can say will be entirely superflu- ous to what others have already said. But for what it is worth, Martin and I shared an interest in all things to do with brass models and we were in the process of nego- tiating the content for a joint “Back to Basics” article on brass collecting, sadly now never to reach fruition. As
an editor, Martin was very professional and I trusted his judgement explicitly. Over the years I provided Martin with a lot of material for Roundhouse, including many photographs, always with the rider that he could exercise his editorial judgement as he saw fit. He was always a model of courtesy, but he held very firm views as to what was appropriate. Fortunately these tended to coincide with my own, so over the years we developed a very harmonious working relationship. I shall miss our regular exchanges and I remain greatly saddened by his sudden demise. Like others, I fear his loss has left a a void in the region that will be a challenge to fill.
Tom Watson
I don’t remember who contacted whom first. I know it
was through the annals of “Railway Modeler” and in the very early 1970s. In the days when American N gauge was in its infancy and Martin needed an N.Y.C. N gauge caboose. I swapped one for an ATSF one and that was the beginnings of a lifetime’s friendship. Initially we used to write to each other, almost weekly, later we would spend hours on the phone. We always found things to talk about and never, it seems, ever disagreed. I gave
up N gauge in about 1972 and switched to HO. I bought a couple of Bowser kits from Bernie’s. Never having at- tempted anything more complicated than an Airfix Spitfire or Mayflower kit and knowing Martin had managed to get a couple of ‘Ks’ kits to actually run, I asked him to build them for me. This involved a longish trip to Hove from Cheltenham (no motorway then).
August 2017 - ROUNDHOUSE 11