Creew Area Group - Last Words

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Will L
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Creew Area Group - Last Words

Postby Will L » Sun Aug 15, 2021 7:16 pm

It is sad to say but the pandemic period has seen a sad contraction in Crewe Area Group numbers. Not that Covid was in any way to blame, but as three of our members have died during the period, I would like to pay tribute to all three.


Ron Dickenson


Ron lead a very full life, as the tribute read at his funeral made clear, but unlike many of our members, he was not a railwayman by profession, so his interest in trains and model making was “only” a consuming interest. For many years he was an active member of the Macclesfield club, as were other CAG members. He was jointly responsible for the New Mills layout which was exhibited in the late seventies and early eighties. His children still vividly remember producing the papier-mache for its scenic development. He also made significant contributions to the club’s Cheadle layout. He was very much a part of the fine scale group that developed at Macclesfield and adopted P4 as its way forward. He was a fine modeller, producing some notable wagons and locos, but he was perhaps best known for some really fine model buildings produced over the years. Within my own experience came the very fine station building which graced Knutsford East. This contained much fine detail that was quite difficult to appreciate once it got surrounded by canopies and embedded into the layout. As anno-domini intervened, his health made actual modelling increasingly difficult for him, but he remained an active member of the group. He made real efforts to attend meetings, when infirmity was making it increasingly difficult. As group organiser I appreciate such things, and I certainly appreciated Ron.
2012 dec bd .jpg

Dick Petter

Dick was a career railway man, but in his case his profession was that of a civil engineer. This may well account for the proliferation of bridges to be found on the groups Knutsford East layout for which Dick was definitely the gaffer. He was an early adopter of P4 standards, and I have photographic evidence of his membership of a previous Crewe Area Scalefour group as a much younger man. His interests were not limited to trains or one particular scale, as the vast array of bus models that greeted any visitor to his railway room showed. That Dick was fully signed up to the “getting it all right” mantra is certain, and any offering that failed to reach the high standards that he set himself would engender a remark of the form “You do realise that…”. A real engineer, his locos in particular were beautifully constructed. He did like a challenge, but he also had difficulty in finishing stuff once he’d worked out how it could be done to his own satisfaction. A failing many of us can recognise. That said, when the demands of the exhibition circuit were on him, things did get finished, as the eleven Cheshire Lines Coaches built for Knutsford East show. As perhaps befits a civil engineer, he also had a big thing about trackwork. Work on the points for Knutsford East was shared across the group, as a learning exercise, although one suspects a fair amount of fettling was involved before they got fixed to the layout. Continuing in this vein, his last big project was sorting out the track of Slattocks for the Manchester Group. There, trains will be running nicely, well into the future, thanks to Dick.
Meeting april 11-1.jpg

Don Rowland

As we all know, Don was much more than just a member of the Crewe Area Group, as his history and the well respected output of books about wagons shows. In fact we really only feature in the Don Rowland story because he chose to retire into Shropshire and, of course, became an active member of his Local Area Group. His layout “the Central Cheshire Line” was a regular venue for our meetings and was very much a vehicle for an interest in the working of freight, and how it was organised and carried. The layout lives on in the hands of another of our members. Before retirement Don was resident north of the border and was an active member of the East of Scotland Group. Don had certainly displayed his modelling credentials by providing the Forth Hotel building complex that is a central feature of their Burnisland layout. This was generated from no more than a ground plan, a few ceiling heights and a few photos. One thing that comes over very strongly is that Don was one of nature’s gentlemen. He was always prepared to encourage and support anybody who asked. Don was always worth a chat and had a fund of knowledge, and relevant anecdotes, born of a lifetime interest in the industry, not to mention as a LNER employee in an early part of working life. The hobby will be poorer without him, although paradoxically he definitely left it richer than he found it.
forth hotel.jpg


Finally a picture of all three gentlemen taken at an Area Group Meeting, Don bottom left, Dick standing and Ron bottom right. John and I are pretending not to be there.
2013 October 2 pixcelated.jpg


Will Litchfield
Crewe Area Group Organiser
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Paul Willis
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Re: Creew Area Group - Last Words

Postby Paul Willis » Mon Aug 16, 2021 6:21 am

Will,

Thank you for three lovely tributes to lost friends. I feel that I've gained just a little insight into the people that they were, beyond their modelling achievements.

I, and I'm sure many others, appreciate you taking the time to write. May they rest in peace.

Cheers
Paul
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Terry Bendall
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Re: Creew Area Group - Last Words

Postby Terry Bendall » Mon Aug 16, 2021 7:27 am

I think Paul has summed up the thoughts of many of those who knew Ron, Dick and Don. I never met Ron but did have the privilege of meeting both Dick and Don. In particular, in the early days of my organisation of Scaleforum Don provided very helpful advice about possible venues which he did not need to do but did so in the interests of helping the Society.

Many thanks to Will for providing the insights.

Terry Bendall

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Jim Summers
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Re: Creew Area Group - Last Words

Postby Jim Summers » Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:03 am

Will has put it very well.
I was fortunate to know all three, though I knew Don most closely. All were people it was a delight and privilege to know and were very helpful to EditorJim in my days on the Scalefour News. I still regard Ron's article on loading cattle as a classic of Getting it all Right, Dick's "ballast sampling" event will always stick in my mind, and Don's wry wit enlivened so many discussions and writings.

Jim

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Re: Creew Area Group - Last Words

Postby Jeremy Suter » Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:17 pm

Thanks Will for putting that up for our lost group members.
I knew all of them well before the Crewe area group was formed and Ron nearly all my life. They all taught me something over the years about how to look at a models compared to the real thing. As Dick once said the railway is built to the landscape not the landscape built to the railway.
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