I guess few - if any listers have ever met Ray Henderson. I suspect the vast majority of listers may have never heard of him - apart from seeing his name appearing in Triumph related books. But if you own a postwar Standard or Triumph, you can be absolutely certain Ray worked on it *in depth* in the factory Experimental Department when it was a prototype. Ray died in Coventry Hospital on Thursday of last week following a very severe stroke a day or so earlier. Please be aware he was WIDELY respected by all of us at Standard Triumph for his incredible engineering knowledge and depth of experience, his hands-on ability, his charm and probably for one quality above all others that sadly doesn't seem to count for much these days - he was an English Gentleman in the truest sense. His funeral will be this coming Friday at a location not too far from the former factory site. At the risk of bandwidth (for which I make no apology in this instance) I have pasted below a precis copy of a longer obituary to Ray which will appear in the Triumph Sports Six Club magazine in September. Paul Richardson has already submitted a similar profile of this remarkable man for publication in The Vintage Triumph and I sincerely hope its Editor, Mike Cook, will find sufficient space for Paul's tribute in the very next edition? Ladies and Gentlemen - you have no idea how much this man influenced the outcome of the car that is your pride and joy. Standard-Triumph has many unsung heroes - and Ray Henderson was certainly one of them.
Jonmac RAY HENDERSON - 1928-2003 Born near Winchcombe in Gloucestershire, Ray was certainly 'a Standard man.' He joined as an office boy in the drawing office in 1943, later moving to the engine test section in Experimental. His period of National Service was with the Fleet Air Arm and at its conclusion he returned to Standard. Ray quickly became recognised as a highly competent 'hands on' Engineer and was actively involved in the building of all Standard's post-war prototypes and experimental cars. These included Mayflower, 'Bullit' and Ken Richardson's TR2 prototype, that broke the 120mph barrier at Jabbeke, fifty years ago this year. So thorough was Ray Henderson in his approach to his work that Ken Richardson was adamant he should be present in the works TR team at all major events, rallies and Le Mans. When the company later came under Leyland control, Ray ran the rally and race workshops throughout the time it was based at Coventry, until being transferred to Special Tuning at Abingdon. At that point, he returned to the higher echelons of key experimental work and a Standard-Triumph historian will attest to Ray's unique skills. He built several one-off cars himself, among which were a TR engined 'Simca,' a 4 wheel drive high performance 'off road' Triumph 1300, and a very Special 'live axle' Spitfire - the road holding of which greatly outperformed the conventional production model. In conjunction with Dennis Barbet, he built a rotary throttle mechanism that was later patented by Rover. Ray retired in 1986, by which time he was Manager of the Experimental Workshop facility at Canley as well as the Test Centre at the Gaydon Proving Ground. He was a supremely modest man, as were many of his contemporaries - and perhaps he preferred to leave the story-telling of Standard-Triumph's post war history to others? He once said to me, "Look, it was a job that had to be done. I did mine to the best of my ability, as did many others - and I was paid for it. We never thought we might be making history at the time and why should I be singled out from all the rest to tell it how it was? We worked as a team." He will be sorely missed by so many who knew him and worked with him - not least by his wife, Joan - and his two sons, Roger and Ian. ENDS /// [EMAIL PROTECTED] mailing list /// Send admin requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] /// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool /// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive /// Send list postings to [EMAIL PROTECTED] /// Edit your replies! If they include this trailer, they will NOT be sent.
