As a sad irony of sorts, I was sat in Fenny’s garden on Sunday morning and was telling her about my uncle Phil and his family and more over – about my uncle Terry…
Yes, there is a greater clan, daunting thought per-se.. but generally I never talk much about my family to folks, as it’s really not their business. But I was telling her about the cool stuff Terry did and was saying that he wasn’t too well atm… well I don’t know what time it was in British Columbia, but on Saturday Terry died….
Now, I didn’t know Terry too well, but with the world-wide web it’s fairly easy to keep track of folks… Anyway, he left Blighty many years ago to become a Construction Manager in Canada…
As part of that job he was required to be able to fly as apparently Canada is not small (who knew…).
Years later and even in retirement or sorts his love and passion of flying became not just a passion but a business too. Now, being an airforce brat myself, I’ve always had an interest in flying, yet I don’t actually like it too much – or it’s the fact that I’m not driving and crazy enough to want to own my own 777… who knows…
In 92 he started a company called Industrial Laser Cutting Ltd in Vancouver, but before then he also began and continued to run a little known company called Tally Ho Enterprises… and this is what they made
Yep, they made Spitfire’s… 80% of full-scale…
Oh, he had been good enough to plough a few farmers fields free of charge in his time as they experimented with the right power-plant’s etc, but the quality of his products gained world-wide recognition for passion and excellence…
The last few years were brutal on his personal life with him contracting ALS, and while I was never part of it I have distantly kept up on everyone.
While his passing is painful for the closest to him, for me I’ll never be able to talk to him about his passion – that isn’t his loss, but it is mine.
It is only now he adds new meaning to “Reach for the skies” as finally he concludes his journey through this life by actually doing so.
He’ll never know it, but I thought what he did pretty much Rocked!!!
