Come in and take a set. The sitting room is furnished with
the Parker Knoll easy chairs he once sold for a living.
Not that Ted, who turns 90 next birthday, is about to
take things easy himself.
Three times a week he rises early and drives to
Alleynes Pool for a 7.30 swim. An ex-jogger, he has
Only just given up delivering the 'Tower and Spire'
magazine for St Michael, Stone and St Saviour Aston,
and is still an active parish member.
All this despite a double heart bypass in 2007, a
second bowel cancer operation in 201 3, a prostrate
removal and a hernia operation (on top of caring for
his late wife Mavis, who passed away in October
2013).
In May this year, a former Parker Knoll colleague
who had moved to the southern USA invited Ted
over for a holiday. There Ted celebrated his 89th
birthday by climbing into the rear cockpit of a
Harvard two-seater plane for a flight over Mesa
Airport, now an aviation museum near Arizona, USA.
“Unusually, they put a control column in for me
because it was Harvards that I had learnt to fly as an
RAF pilot in WW2,” he explained.
Born in inner London in 1925,Ted had grown up
with a passion for model airplanes. On leaving
school at 15, he joined the Air Training Corps (ATC),
where examination success rapidly promoted him
to ATC Flight Sergeant. Aged 17%, he volunteered
for the RAF, passing both its tough medical and
aptitude tests to be accepted as a trainee pilot.
After training on Tiger Moths in the UK,in1944Ted
was sent to Arizona, USA, where he enhanced his
basic flying skills with close formation flying and
aerobatics.
"All that the Red Arrows do, l could do as well” is
his proud boast. He got his wings in August 1945,
one of the last to do so as WW2 came to an end.
Wanting to continue as a career pilot, Ted signed
on for the RAF and spent the next three years in
India co-piloting Dakota transport planes.
"Strangely, my chief pilot wasn't terribly keen on
flying,” Ted recounts. ”He'd supervise my takeoff,
then retire to the rear for a kip. I'd have to send the
navigator to wake him up for the landing - but that
was fine by me!”
But following Indian independence in 1947, Ted's
last service duty was to fly his Dakota back to the UK
to be demobbed.
"The late 1940s brought me down to earth with a
bump!” Ted ruefully recalled. He lacked the flying
hours to become an airline pilot, a RAF ground staff
career was not for him, he decided, nor a return to
the City firm of accountants, where he had started
working life.
Still thrill-seeking, in 1948, Ted went along to the
inaugural meeting of an Adventurers Club, which
ended with him being adopted as Honorary
Secretary.
The Honorary Treasurer was Mavis, a Yorkshire lass
living in London, who, on setting eyes on Ted that
night, promptly announced he was “hers”!
Ted and Mavis's first adventure was being winched
down on ropes and tackle through an underground
shaft into two 4O›foot flint-lined caverns or Dene
holes in East Anglia. “They were thought to have
been Viking grain stores,” Ted explains/'The London
Evening Standard sent a Journalist to cover the
story. He didn't want to come down with us ~ until
Mavis shamed him into doing it!"
But the club's greatest adventure saw them buying
an ex-Admiralty surf boat, for which they constructed a
collapsible cabin while Mavis made the sail.
ln August 1948, the plan was for Ted and three
other men to sail it down the Thames and across the
Channel to Calais, then back again. Their first call was
at Tower Pier where they picked up Mavis and a one
Iegged fellow passenger to take them down-river to
the Isle of Grain. “The Piermaster frankly thought
we'd escaped from a lunatic asylum,” Ted recalls.
He began to understand why, when reaching the
Isle of Grain, they found the wind was against them,
the tide was out and they had to wade through mud
to deposit Mavis and the one-Iegged passenger at a
pub.” The rest of us spent the night in an empty hut
nearby, repaired a hole in the boat, continued down
the Thames, turned right and headed for Calais. But
we still had to row nearly all the way!"
Once in Calais harbour, they found the French
customs were on strike, so they had no one to report
their arrival to. “One of our party was happy to stay
on board and fish while the rest of us went off for a
long weekend in Paris,” Ted continues.“ When we got
back, the customs were still on strike,” so our visit to
France must have gone unrecorded!"
Their return journey was in a flat calm (more
rowing required) until they were seven miles off
Ramsgate, where they hit a thunderstorm. "Forked
Iightning was hitting the sea all around and our
mast was the highest thing for miles. We sat there
praying, but made it back to Ramsgate harbour -
and to Mavis!" The pair got married the following
November.
As for earning his living, Ted's charm and quick wits
were to make him a natural salesman. After a spell
with shoe wholesalers Lilley and Skinners in
London, his second job brought him into this area as
salesman for the Stone bespoke shoe manufacturer
Invogue.
"Invogue had two dedicated shoe outlets at two
London department stores, where it was my job to
sell their shoes to ladies of quality/' Ted happily
recounts. But a year later, the increase in purchase
tax on luxury goods sadly put paid to Invogue.
Instead Ted gravitated towards the furniture
industry, landing himself a job in High Wycombe
with Parker Knoll, where his natural sales ability and
diligence in qualifying as a member of the
Chartered Institute of Marketing after two years of
evening classes assured his career success.
With promotion came moves in a northerly
direction, first to Birmingham, then Walsall, where
the couple's son Martin and daughter Lorraine were
born. In the late 19605, the young family settled in
Stone. “l was Parker Knoll area rep for Staffordshire,
Derbyshire, Cheshire and Sheffield so Stone was a
convenient base. lt’s a right-sized town, the people are friendly,
my daughter lives locally and my son plans to retire here too.”
While Martin and Lorraine were growing up, Mavis combined
motherhood with working as a dinner lady and playground
supervisor at Manor Hill First School, then Walton Priory Middle
School. ”The heads loved her because she could keep order in
the canteen and playground. On wet days she’d test the
children on their mental arithmetic. They remembered her
fondly and for years afterwards, used to greet her when we
were out and about.”
In Stone, Ted promptly made himself known to the then
incumbent of St Michael’s, becoming (with Mavis's support and
assistance) a pillar of the parish first as reader, later as Church
Warden, Hon. Treasurer, latterly GiftAid Secretary and up till
recently, newsletter deliverer. Ted still takes his turn reading at
the 8am service once a month. ”Rector Ian Cardinal thinks it's
good for volunteers to read so that the congregation get a
change from just hearing his voice.”
After his retirement 25 years ago, Ted was a volunteer driver
for Staffordshire Ambulance Service. ”Some of my passengers
taught me a real life lesson," he recounts/‘Some were in terrible
health, but still thinking of others worse off than themselves
and still looking forward.”
lt's this positive outlook, an active lifestyle and a laidback
approach, not to mention a fair portion of luck that have led to
Ted's long, successful and happy life. "While l’ve always striven
for success, I've never worried about things I've no power to
change,” is Ted's recipe.
”ln wartime, l never bothered about the V2 rockets raining all
about us while we RAF volunteers were up on roofs repairing
bomb damage to homes in London,” Ted says. “You couldn't
hearV2s until they were about to fall and by then it would have
been all over anyway!
“We've all got to go some time, and l'm not afraid of death
when it comes,” Ted confides. But meanwhile, he’s popping
down to Stone Tennis Club for a hand of bridge.
(please excuse any errors in the above – blame in on my OCR)