Douglas William Moutrie (19 Jun 1920 - 2 Mar 2021)

Douglas William Moutrie

I was born on 19th June 1920 in Woodgreen, North London and lived in Hornsey. Until 1932 I attended local schools, and at the age of eight joined the choir of St Mary, Hornsey; that probably started me off on my life-time journey with church music and the organ.
In 1932 my father was moved from the London office of Worthington-Simpson Ltd to the Works at Newark on Trent. I attended the Magnus Grammar School; I had some piano lessons and started to get familiar with the organ.

In 1937 I took the School Certificate and gained matriculation – necessary in those days if you wanted to go to university. In my final year at school I achieved some success in athletics winning the cross- country, 1 mile, half mile, quarter mile and quarter mile relay races Also over this period I got my first organ appointment at a country Church.

At the end of the school year I started an engineering apprenticeship with Worthington-Simpson Ltd, manufacturers of pumps and power station heat exchangers. I started my engineering education at Newark Technical College – one full day and two evening classes per week. In 1938 I transferred to Lincoln Technical College to work for a BSc degree. However in 1939 the war started and travel became difficult, so I had to revert to the Newark College where I resumed studies for the Ordinary National Certificate, which I obtained the following year. At this time I was transferred to the drawing office at W-S, and I became a draftsman, a job I very much enjoyed.

By 1941 the war had hotted up; London and major cities were suffering intense bombing. Newark had only one serious raid when a lone bomber hit Ransome and Marles Ltd, a major manufacturer of ball bearings. I took the exams for Higher National Certificate and passed with some distinctions. My 21st birthday in June that year was a very subdued affair – no party, no celebration. Throughout this period I had been working six or seven days a week (plus overtime) attending College and as a member of the Home Guard, spending two nights per week on guard at the Works – life was fraught!

Up to 1943 I had not been conscripted into the armed forces because my job was regarded as a reserved occupation, a term used to describe jobs essential to the war effort. However that year I received what I can only describe as an invitation from the War Office, to join the Army as a ‘Potential Officer’. I duly applied and received a one-way ticket to Hull. I started my initial training which, with others, involved shoveling an enormous heap of coke. This was like a holiday after life in Newark – no thought required – just obey orders

At Christmas I had some leave and Margaret and I got engaged. I also received my commission as a Second Lieutenant.

In March 1944 I got a posting to a REME workshop In Croydon. I was billeted with a family and had very happy time for a few months, just making myself useful around the workshop. Whilst I was there I discovered that my HNC certificate entitled me to another pip, so I became a Lieutenant.

Somewhere about this time I had an engineering course at Loughborough College, going through the workshops – machine shop, fitting shop, forge, welding, tin-smithing etc. Then followed Pre-OCTU at Wrotham and OCTU at Foremark Hall near Repton. I passed out with rank of Lieutenant in December.

I was sent on a course, the 51st FAE course (Field Artillery Equipments). It embraced every aspect of big guns, for which I was sent all over the country, each place covering a different aspect– Croydon (again), Stoke-on-Trent, Burscough and Arborfield, REME HQ. The course ended in July and from that day to this I have never seen any item of Field Artillery Equipment. Margaret and I were married on embarkation leave. We had a brief honeymoon in Ely.

Immediately after my leave I was posted to the Middle East, sailing to Alexandria on a French ship, the Felix Rousselle. Shortly after arrival we were transferred to a holding camp at Tel-el-Kabir on the Suez Canal near the Great Bitter Lakes. The next move was to 4 Base Workshop in Cairo. The Base Workshop consisted of a dozen or so separate workshops, each making a different range of products for Army use. Bedsteads, cooking stoves, piston for engines, canvas goods, all sorts of woodwork (that’s where our dining room chairs came from), ship propellors, vehicle modifications, refurbishing engines, medical instruments, cranes – you name it we made it. During this time the major theatres of war were coming to an end. We had celebrations for both VE and VJ nights. Meantime Margaret was teaching, first in a boys’ school in Nottingham and then in a school in Newark.

It was whilst I was stationed in Abbassia , Cairo, that I had the good fortune to join the Garrison Church which not only had a two manual organ but had as its organist and choir master Harry Gabb, who subsequently became sub organist at St Paul’s Cathedral and organist of the Chapels Royal. He gave me my first organ lessons and taught me the rudiments. He was an excellent teacher and a hard task master.

In the latter part of my stay in Cairo I had charge of the drawing office and I was also transport officer with a total of 153 vehicles. Transport was easy and I was able to see a lot of Cairo, the Pyramids and other sites. Then after two years I got home leave – a whole month – and Margaret managed to get leave at the same time. At the end of my leave I returned to the Middle East where I was posted to Palestine. There I worked in a school for motor mechanics, which was to serve me well later in life. I was stationed in Gaza which isn’t too far from Jerusalem; I took parties of my unit to see the holy sites there. I had an enjoyable year in Gaza at the end of which I was posted home for demobilisation.

So March 1947 saw me a civilian again. Margaret had been busy. Her father had purchased two small cottages in the village and converted them into one. Margaret had them decorated and she had furnished them, so I had a ready-made home waiting. After a month getting used to civvy street again, I returned to my old job as a draftsman at Worthington Simpson Ltd employed on power station heat exchangers. I was appointed organist of a small church at Winthorpe, about 2 miles from Newark. I bought a motor cycle and had enough petrol coupons for my journeys to work and to Winthorpe.

The 4th of January 1948 saw the arrival of our first child, John, in Newark Hospital. Life assumed a pattern with our parents in easy reach. After a year I felt I needed a more rewarding job; the prospects at W-S were limited. I applied for and was accepted as a research engineer at Vickers Armstrong Ltd at Newcastle on Tyne; then followed a family move to Benton, six miles north of the city centre. Vickers was engaged on the manufacture of large naval gun mountings and the research department was mostly devoted to their remote control. I was involved with stress analysis and noise reduction. Fairly soon I became involved with Benton Church and became assistant organist.

Then in March 1949 Brenda appeared on the scene. Once the children were mobile Margaret resumed teaching, first in a PNEU school where the children went with her, and then in a school in a mining village, where George Stephenson had once been a pupil. The children there spoke a broad dialect of Geordie, which Margaret found well nigh incomprehensible.

By 1954 naval contracts were beginning to dry up and it was clear that Tyneside was heading for problems. I was offered the job of Works Manager at a small engineering firm in Newark; the principals were friends of Margaret’s father. So we moved back to Newark and to the street where my parents lived (the dog regularly got two dinners!). Wakes and Lamb was a company of millwrights with a factory employing about 30 and equipped with a comprehensive set of old belt driven machine tools. Principally engaged on the manufacture of pumps and machines for local industries, they provided a service for the local breweries, glue works, maltings, plaster works and the agricultural industries; they could make or repair almost anything. As time went on John won a choral scholarship to Southwell Minster, where he became a member of the Cathedral choir and a boarder. Brenda won a scholarship to the local girls Grammar School.

1959 saw the arrival of David. Margaret was very ill which was why David was born in Nottingham Hospital. Over this period I took various organ appointments finishing as organist and choir master of Balderton church. However as time went on personality problems developed at the Works and I decide the time had come to move.

1962: My next appointment was with a company designing and marketing mechanical handling equipment for bulk materials – soup powders, various foods, carbon black (horrible stuff) nylon pellets etc. The customers were large companies – Michelin, Dunlop, Firestone, Nestles, British Nylon Spinners etc. The company office was located in Leamington Spa and we found a very modern house in nearby Warwick (the nicest place we found in all our travels). Both John and Brenda went to Kenilworth Grammar school.

The company employed about 20 people, mostly engineers and salesmen. The MD and principal share holder, was a brilliant man and an autocrat. After I had been there about four years he started firing senior staff for little reason. I saw the writing on the wall and decided it was time to move.

In late 1965 I came to Kent for an interview with Blaw Knox and was offered the job of Chief Engineer Designate. The following year I became Chief Engineer. The company made road making machinery, mostly pavers, and some other construction equipment, the pavers being built under licence from an American company of the same name. Trade was good and we carried on comfortably for about ten years.

Meanwhile John had stayed on in Warwick to complete his sixth form studies During this time he secured an industrial scholarship with Michelin; the company sent him to Manchester University to study engineering and paid him throughout his training. Brenda went to Chatham Grammar School for her sixth form year and then got a job with ICL as a Trainee Computer Programmer. David aged six went to school in Rainham. It was around this time that Margaret renewed her interest in painting, which continued until she no longer could hold a paint brush.

During this period I again had the opportunity to take some organ lessons with Barry Fergusson, then the organist at Rochester Cathedral.

Following some negotiations, the American company put Blaw Knox up for sale. It was bought by Babcock and Wilcox, who after acquiring Winget decided to set up a Construction Equipment Division. From there on things went from bad to worse. World trade suffered a slump and Babcock decided to sell the Division which was acquired by a German company. We later discovered the two principals were crooks, who were sent to jail for flouting financial regulations. I was made redundant in December 1982; the firm went bust about two years later.

1983 was a strange year when I had to get used to not going to work. Shortly before my redundancy I had again been appointed organist and choir master at St Matthew, Wigmore, about half a mile from home. This gave me an immediate interest. Then Margaret gave me my first computer for which I spent many months becoming fluent in the Basic computer language. So I settled down to my different life.

Margaret’s family owned a Bus and Coach Company, W. Gash and Sons Ltd, which ran the service from Newark to Nottingham and the villages between; for some years she had been a director. This involved her in the business, for which she needed to travel the 160 miles between Wigmore and Newark regularly. I also was made a director. Margaret’s father died in 1973 which meant, as she was now the major share holder, that she became Chairman and Managing Director with immediate effect; a little later I became Company Secretary. This gave our retirement a very different emphasis. We were travelling to Newark almost weekly. This pattern went on almost unbroken until the business was sold in 1988.

For my part, shortly after I retired I was invited to join REMAP, a charity whose members are retired engineers and members of the medical profession (occupational therapists and the like) who provide aids for disabled people on an individual personal basis. I ran the Medway and Swale Panel for about thirty years; I was recommended for and subsequently awarded an MBE which I received from Prince Charles.

Rotary has been a major part of my life since I joined in 1979. It gave immense pleasure to Margaret and me; we joined in everything we could, the dinners, the weekends away, triangulation meetings, committees etc. I was President of Gillingham Club twice and for some years produced the Club Newsletter. I was the second member (after John Lumley Robinson) to be appointed a Paul Harris Fellow and last year I was given a sapphire badge to mark my 50 years of membership. Who could ask for more?

2019 A sad year. Margaret, my wife and my love, died on 1st April

2020 And we are all stuck at home with the Coronavirus Problem.

Late May. All being well I will achieve my century in a month’s time.

* * * * *
In June 2020, Dad did indeed celebrate his 100th birthday. Unfortunately, the family’s plans for a party had to be cancelled due to the Covid restrictions, but neighbours, the Rotary Club and many friends turned out in force for a street party in his honour.

He remained independent, mentally alert, physically capable of doing his own shopping and (after Margaret died) living on his own, right up until his illness in January 2021. He continued to play the organ at two churches and he last played in public for midnight mass at St Matthews, Wigmore on Christmas Eve 2020.

In January 2021 Dad became ill, and he passed away on 2nd March 2021 from Pancreatic Cancer. He will be badly missed by his family and the community in general.