Page 30 - May June 2020

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Stay Home. Stay Safe. Play Trains.
Ron Beatson was born in Edinburgh in 1933. He joined the RAF as an officer cadet at the age of 18.
In the service he became every boy of the 50s dream, a jet fighter pilot. He did virtually all of his fast jet training in the United States. On returning home he was posted to Germany where he flew the Canadair Sabre 4 and later
to the Hawker Hunters mark 4 and 5. He described flying the Sabre with its huge roomy cockpit as like being in a Jaguar sports car, but the Hunter was like being in a Bentley Continental, fast and smooth, a delight to fly. He never fired his guns in anger but was put on call to fly to Cyprus in 1956 with the Suez crisis.
Later he flew Whirlwind and Wessex helicopters out in Aden, where he de- scribed things as a ‘little more difficult’.
Ron was an accomplished scratch builder of structures and it was in Aden that he constructed a superb curved timber trestle which adorned a corner of Derek Frow’s HO layout for many years.
Last Run . . . Ron Beatson
The first of Ron’s layout’s I saw at his home in Worcester depicted a round- house and loco facility of the New York Central lines. Most of the locos were Japanese brass and he continued over the years to collect locos and rolling stock though often diverging into the power from other eastern roads.
His aforementioned prowess in scratch building caused him to be asked to be a judge at NMRA BR convention con- tests at which Ron was a regular attendee until he started to suffer health problems.
Ron served as NMRA British Region President 1980 - 1981.
He is survived by his wife Ruth, two children John and Clare, five grandchil- dren and one great grand child.
The NMRA British Region has lost an able administrator, diplomat and excellent modeller.
Rod Welch
On leaving the service Ron worked for the MOD around the country until his retirement.
When I joined the NMRA in the early 70s Ron was the second person in the NMRA I contacted after Ellis James Robertson.Together with the late DavidVaughan Davies we started a sort of ‘Club within a Club’ called ‘The Cyder Belt’.
ROUNDHOUSE - May/June 2020
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