RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Alison and Family

I lost my brother the same way. The suddeness of it is numbing.  My heart goes out to you at this sad moment in time.  Words can not express my profound sadness of this news, neither can anything I write take away the pain.  You have children, so Tony lives on through them.  It is at times like this when you realize what a great gift children are.  Hold them tight, and get through this the best you can.  Soon you will be able laugh at the memories of happiness you shared.

Thank you for sharing him with us.  Time is a precious thing and we valued what he brought to this forum.  He will be missed.    You and your children will be in my prayers and thougths.

My condolences to you and your family Alison, very sad news RIP Tony (a master at modeling)
Graham

Guys, I just wanted to say thank you. Myself and other members of Tonys family have been following this thread and found alot of comfort within it. Its so nice to read how much you all thought of him. I can tell you now Tony would have been made up with this thread and to know how well he was thought of. One thing I will say is at times like this you do realise what and who is important in life. Sitting at Tonys bedside, holding his hand and talking to him brings it home like nothing else can, counting down the moments til I knew I had to say goodbye, if you love someone, make sure you tell them every day. Make it count. You never know if you'll get another chance.

I've read from Tony in our forum and i was really shocked.

@Tony's family: I will send you my deepest condolences on this way.

Mike Fuchs

That's really sad news , Alison

My deepest condolences to you and your family.
I can't express how I'm feeling this morning.

Juergen

i lost my sister to cancel a little time ago, she went into hospital for tests on a Wednesday and died of cancer on the Friday none of us knew she had this terrible illness not even her, it happened so fast we were all in shock for a very long time.
i really do feel for your loss and understand what your family must be going through, even now i still say good morning and good night to my sisters photo, like a couple of the guys on here i never met tony but through talking too him swapping ideas information and having a good laugh i felt like i had lost a friend and the RC/ modeling community has lost a valued member.
we will all remember tony as one of the good guys and remember him with great fondness...........

im numbed, rip tony , you will be greatly missed mate, alison and the girls my thoughts are with you , and your family
regards , cliff ,[ICE]

Alison, can I firstly just say I'm so sorry to hear of Tony's passing away, he was a great modeller, a kind soul and I would like to think a good friend. I know it must be unbelievably hard to cope right now, but I hope that the comments on the forum from the guys and gals will show how loved Tony was .

My very best wishes to you and your girls, I just wish that words could help!

best wishes,

Alex

As a friend who did know Tony well, I am shocked to return from a long weekend away to hear this terrible news.
I have spoken to Alison directly to give her my condolences to her and their two daughters, Katie and Erin (whose name I never spell correctly).

Unlike most of you, I did know Tony outside of cyberspace.

I had got into HL tanks over 4 years ago, and had joined the German HL forum, which them morphed into PanzerKetten - PK as Tony and I called it. He had
joined that a year or so after me and was amazed to spot not just a fellow Brit, but one just 2 miles away from him. He PM'ed me and arranged to come
over.

To say that my first impression of him as he stood at my door was that we were chalk and cheese would be an understatement. But we found out as we
chatted about the tanks, model kits we had built, toys we had had in the past and so on, that we had a huge amount in common, being only a few months
different in age and having lived through the same times.

I am a hoarder of most of my possessions and as we spent several evenings most weeks chatting, we would mention something about a Matchbox or Airfix or
Tamiya kit, or a Dinky toy, or even sometimes Action Man (GI Joe to our transatlantic members) and I'd say "Oh, I've got one of those in my loft!" And
then I'd disappear up the ladder to the loft and bring one down. He would be amazed and we'd carry on reminiscing.

After we'd got past the reminiscing stage we would obviously scour the HL-related websites. As I can speak German we trawled through the Panzerketten or
MModell pages together looking for new things. Or else he'd spotted something and required me to translate.

About this time last year I told Tony about the Mark-1-Tank trade days. Mark-1-Tanks are based only tens of miles away from us, so I contacted Mark to
see if we could go and we went down there. Tony was enthralled by the 1/6th tanks there and loved to take loads of photos of them. In summer last year
we went to TankFest at Bovington together, along with another friend of mine. We all got on famously.

By chance a colleague of mine told me about an engineering society lecture at Salisbury last year. It was on the Tiger tank and was by one of the main
restorers there. Yet again, Tony loved that. As his login-name suggested, he was a Tiger tank nut, trying to learn everything he could about it to get
the details _exactly_ right.

To this date, I think he is the only person to have bought a second HL Tiger hull, cut out one side of the suspension and put it into his 'main' Tiger
hull, so that it has the correct asymmetric suspension. I haven't heard of anyone else doing it. He was that much a stickler for accuracy.

Of course, even that wasn't good enough for him. When the metal hulls came out he had to get one to add that extra touch of realism and performance.

Two years ago as the first 3:1 reduction gearboxes came in, both he and I modified standard HL gearboxes to do the same thing. He used his welding
skills (he was a qualified welder) to modify the gearbox cases to take the extra gear and re-positioned motor.

Despite being a man of limited means, he was very much in the forefront of pushing the envelope of what a HL Tiger could be made into. Every 6 months or
so, his Tiger would get a complete stripdown and re-engineering with some new feature. First ElMod, then a succession of modifications such as all-metal
running gear, tracks, accessories, 3:1 reduction gearboxes, Jamara motors, the suspension correction, moving the turret to its correct position,
correcting the cannon pivot angle. And so on, the list is however not endless as it has had to end here prematurely....

Only last Tuesday he had brought his Tiger over to me to modify its wiring as he had corrected the 'sit' of the HL Tiger turret and was in the middle of
the re-engineering phase having got the metal hull recently. I re-wired the ElMod for him and we both battled the recoil mechanism that he had fitted
and which was playing up. He was going to come over again in the next few days after I had got back from my weekend away to try to sort out the final
wiring mods.

I have been over to see Tony and his family many times in the past few years. his lovely wife Alison has kept us topped up with cups of tea and I have
eaten with them on a few occasions. His elder daughter Katie, just 9yrs old, had her own WSN T-34 which she had worked on with Tony's help. Just a few
weeks ago he had seen my Ripmax 1:54 Tiger again and had planned to get one for his youngest daughter Erin. She is only 2-3 years old, and I have seen
her grow up from a few months old to be able to walk and talk. She was in awe of Tony's Tiger and would love to see it in action - which is why Tony
wanted to give her her own Tiger to play with as she expressed too great an interest in his!!

Tony and I took Katie and his niece Kerstin to a few of the Mark-1-Tank trade days. Again thanks to Mark of Mark-1-Tank, he let them drive one of his
1/6th tanks under my supervision whilst Tony snapped away with his digital SLR at us and the other tanks in action there.

Tony always had big plans. He had already picked up a lot of armour-related German words and was starting to translate PK postings for himself. He was
always wanting me and him to come up with a 'better' gearbox design, he wanted me to come up with better electronics for the HL, or at the least some
form of sound module, and most recently, he had started to cast parts in metal. Only a few weeks ago he gave me a set of home-cast T-34 suspension arms
to try out - which I haven't yet as I am in the middle of a big DIY job at home.

His plan was to begin casting suspension parts for the less-popular HL tanks, e.g. the Walker Bulldog, that everybody else had ignored, and possibly
other less popular items. I had tried converting the DiD Kettenkrad to RC and have been thwarted by the atrocius track quality (too much play leading to
track throwing). It was Tony's intention to cast a new master track link with a proper, play-free, link to make my conversion possible, then try to sell this on to others. Yet another idea of his that will have to wait for someone else to pick up.

Just last year Tony came to me to see if I wanted to start up a UK 1/16th tank site. I was too busy and as I spend all day at work looking at a computer screen I didn't want to do that at home too! A week or so after that idea, he discovered this forum. He loved it and he loved all of you guys. It was the sort of site he would have wanted to start had it not already been done.

Very quickly he rose up the ranks with his contributions, and equally quickly became a moderator. A position he took great pride in. He had the dedication to give his all to this site. He so wanted to be an important cog in its workings whereas people like me just want to dip in and out.

Tony had great ideas, great dreams, and many tank-related wishes. They'll never come to fruition now.

I really can't believe this. In the 9 years I have lived in Southampton, he's the one and only person I could rely on to be there and offer friendship and help and go and do things with.

I've lost a great friend.

Tony, rest in peace, mate. I miss you already and will miss my phone ringing at precisely 18:45 every few evenings to see if you could come round and discuss some tank-related matter.

Alison, Katie, and Erin; my deepest condolences at this very sad time. Whatever help I can offer, don't hesitate to ask. I owe Tony a great deal.

Nigel

My deepest sympathy. Wishing him eternal peace in God's Mighty and Glorious presence.