A tribute to Alan: March 2015

As we moved out of February, we pressed on into March with a touch of sadness at the news that reached us after a chance visit to Carlton Sheet Metal.

Last March, I posted on this very blog about a man known as Alan whom was responsible for moving our fledgling project forward in a big way at a time when things looked bleak. 2599's exhaust manifold was broken clean in half, and we were at a loss as to what to do. Paul had paid a visit to Carlton Sheet Metal and it was Alan very kindly took on the task of looking at our broken manifold, and did an amazing job of repairing this cruicial item that is now working fine and fitted once again to the bus.

Now we were most saddened as a group to hear that Alan passed away just before Christmas after a short illness. A very skilled man, both he and his expertise will be sorely missed by many, and as always our thoughts go out to his family. This post is a tribute to Alan, without whom our project may have halted completely over a year ago, so I leave now with a photo taken a year ago of Alan proudly admiring his handywork (and rightly so).