80th Birthday of Ron Gage

In 1997 our family celebrated the 80th birthday of Ron Gage

Ron preparing Claud

Ron preparing Claud

Ron Gage was born in the summer of 1917. First World War events for the rest of that year saw Russia declared a Republic; British victory on the Passchendaele Ridge; French victory on the Aisne; the Bolshevik Revolution; the British capture of Passchendaele; Balfour's declaration that Palestine be recognised as 'a national home' for the Jews; the fall of Jerusalem and the Russo-German armistice.

Ron driving Claud with passengers

Ron driving Claud with passengers

As a child he was enquiring and fascinated by the scientific side of life; he innocently put the household at risk by dismantling batteries in his bedroom ever curious about how things worked.

After a brief career as a secretary in the city of London, he moved to electronics. During the Second World War he did not see action as he was in a reserved occupation - making radar to be used for the detection of U Boats. Because of this, he served in the Home Guard although they were never issued with weapons and drill was carried out using broomsticks.

Ron stoking the locomotive Claud

Ron stoking Claud

Living some 14 miles from the City of London he could frequently see the deep red glow in the sky over London as it suffered from the blitz. Indeed in 1936 he had watched the red glow as the Crystal Palace was destroyed by fire. Taking some respite from the Second World War bombing, Ron, Marge and their family (only two children at that time) stayed for a short time on the Sussex coast only for Ron to be chased by machine gun fire as the retreating German planes flew back over the coastline. Some respite - it seemed safer in the suburbs of London!

Marge and Ron

Marge and Ron

He met his wife Marge, at the electronics firm when he offered to mend her fountain pen. True to form, while it sat on his desk he gave away all the inside components and returned the empty pen to her! They married in the spring of 1942 and happily celebrated their Golden Wedding five years ago. They have three children, five grandchildren and to date, three young great grandchildren.

Ron took up model engineering as a hobby when the family transport, a motorbike and sidecar, was sacrificed to buy a lathe for metal turning. The first locomotive he built was the Flying Scotsman and he logged fifteen hundred hours of work involved. The collection of locomotives now consists of Flying Scotsman, Tich, GWR Pannier tank, LMS Princess Marina, Claud and the "Tivvy bumper". Ron also has an interest in clocks and has built some beautiful examples of pendulum clocks. As children we always had our pencils sharpened on the grinder and when French knitting was a craze - not for us a cotton reel with pins in it, but a stainless steel version with a stainless steel pin to turn the stitches.

Princess Marina, Tich, Pannier, Claud and the Flying Scotsman

Princess Marina, Tich, Pannier, Claud and the Flying Scotsman

To solve transporting problems when carrying his first model locomotive, Ron constructed a wooden box trailer which fitted on the back of his bicycle. This led to some hilarity when late one night, he was stopped by a policeman who asked him what he was carrying in the box. Ron replied, "The Flying Scotsman." To which the policeman said, "Don't be blinking cheeky; get off and show me." When the box was opened, there indeed, was a scale model of the Flying Scotsman. One embarrassed policeman?


His family are proud of his achievments and are grateful that he has passed on his thirst for knowledge.

1917-1999

Bill and Ron driving the Tivvy Bumper

Bill and Ron driving the Tivvy Bumper

Granddad caused the start of this web site. This page was the first and only page on the site. He had always shown an interest in computing but not got much hands on experiance at the time of his 80th. So we decided to put the page together. When he came up for his birthday party we all went to Mums computer to kill a bit of time. As was Granddads want, he asked if we had anything useful on the computer. The trap was laid. We said the internet was a damm useful thing. "OK" he said, "for what?". The trap was set. We entered "Ron Gage engineer" into Google and up popped our page. It's enough to say he was gob smacked! Got him!

Ron, Pat and Tony

Ron, Pat and Tony

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