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
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