David Robert Sharples - RIP

[SteveyDee68]

On Saturday 26 September, my father passed away peacefully in his nursing home, after finally succumbing to Dementia and Altzheimer's after several years living with the condition. It is possible that a few O gauge modellers may recognise his name, as he was a member of the Gauge O Guild for many years. However, he was very much an "average" modeller, not a superstar, and his quiet and gentle disposition meant that he could very easily stay quietly in the background whilst other, more forceful personalities held sway. I hope it's okay to leave a little tribute to him here...

 

His first love was buses, and he amassed quite a collection of postcards and photographs in albums, mainly of Manchester Corporation vehicles, together with notebooks detailing which buses he spotted on which services when he was a teenager. He was also interested in trams, and was a regular visitor to Crich museum in its early days. (My mother still thinks he single handedly funded the development of the museum due to the number of postcards he bought there!). His knowledge of Manchester buses and trams was almost encyclopaedic - we often joked he should appear on Mastermind with it as his specialist subject! However, his lack of interest in sport was almost legendary and he would not have fared quite so well on the general knowledge rounds!

 

He was a modeller when my Mum met him - although his first layout was of trams! When I was born, in 1968, his tram layout was set up in the back bedroom of the house which they had bought two years before, but my first memory of his modelling was of his HO terminus, using Fleischmann locos and stock (due to the superiority of their mechanisms over British models of the time!) I later learnt that he had part exchanged his tramway layout and stock at Beatties in Manchester for the German HO stock! I remember his locos consisting of an 0-4-0 tank (Anna?), an 0-4-0 tender and a 2-6-0 tank loco plus various coaches and wagons, with an operating stone loader (Pola?) at one end. In retrospect, the track layout had more in common with a GWR branch line terminus than continental practice, but the locos glided like silk over the Grafar track! At this time, he also had a small collection of clockwork O gauge tinplate locos and coaches - I was never certain if those were from his own childhood, but I remember that when changing up to O gauge that he part exchanged all his HO stock and his tinplate in order to secure Lima 4F 0-6-0 tender locos, a couple of Lima class 33 locos and some continental outline O gauge (French, Italian and German!) About that time we also had some Big Big trains to use in the garden, an 0-4-0 with skip wagons and the Hymek with blue and grey "Mk2" coaches! What fun was had!

 

He constructed an O gauge layout in one third of the loft, across the gable end, consisting of a through station with adjoining goods yard. Around this time he also attended a few night school railway modelling classes, and his continental stock disappeared as he started building Slater's kits and began the long, slow improvement of his Lima 4F loco. Drawings in the Railway Modeller allowed him to build a station building and other structures based upon those of the Settle and Carlisle, including a goods shed built around an extruded plastic shell made for him where he worked designing fume extraction systems! This is so strong that you can (still) stand on it with no ill effects, although obviously that might damage the detailed overlays!

 

He joined the O Gauge Guild and made like minded friends, including some who helped him with his modelling. He improved a pair of Lima MK1 coaches, and continued improving his 4F bit by bit - eventually I think perhaps everything other than the firebox was replaced, so he really did have a "Trigger's Broom" 'Lima' 3F by the time he finished! (Don't ask how that happened, but he had multiple magazine articles and books to prove his model was a 3F and not a 4F!)

 

Upon retiring, he started buying some kit built locos to supplement his own 3F and an industrial shunter he had made from an Atlas 0-6-0 USA outline switcher. Around this time, my parents properly converted the loft - his Lima track was consigned to the bin, and he purchased PECO track, and then commissioned hand built points (Marcway?) His layout was rebuilt as a terminus, running into a traverser fiddle yard - his biggest regret was that the loft was not wide enough to allow a curve to create a U shaped layout!

 

Sadly, it was around this time that his Dementia started although not yet diagnosed. He purchased a 2-6-0 tender loco on his credit card ... except that it was my Mum's and not his! He had been rumbled, and could no longer use the excuse "This? I've had this for years!" to explain his purchases! With his track laid, rolling stock and locos a plenty, he should have been pressing on to finish his layout but another aspect of his dementia stopped him - having put dropper wires through from points, frogs, track feeds etc, he could not remember what went to what or to where, and became despondent with the situation. Hiwever, he did not mention this to anyone or ask for help, determined to sort it out himself. After all, why shouldn't he be able to do it?

 

It is a sad fact that dementia slowly steals away skills as well as memories, and my Dad was never able to wire up his layout. I found a beautifully drawn and labelled trackplan (as befits a draughtman) with the wiring fastidiously indicated - but between planning/drawing it and building the track, he had lost the ability to make sense of his drawings and notes and relate them to the 3D reality under his baseboards. As his dementia progressed, other behaviours appeared - he had always separated articles of interest from publications and filed them, but now he was taking random pages (albeit it must have made sense to him), and later I discovered that he had "sorted" his coach kits ... all underframes in one box, ends in another, bogies in another, roofs in another etc... including a box simply full of whitemetal castings ... eight or so O gauge coaches of different types, all mixed together! His last loco - a compound 4-4-0 tender loco - was stripped into several parts in order to 'improve' it; he purchased a can of primer spray paint the last time I took him to the local model shop, and unbeknownst to me he sprayed the body whilst other locos were sat behind it. That was the last time he was able to get into the loft, and the last time he did any physical modelling. He continued looking at his magazines but as his ability to read and communicate deteriorated, he lost his interest in those too. By the time he lost the use of his legs and moved into his care home, he had ceased to be a modeller. 

 

Visiting him, I would chat to him about how O gauge RTR was flourishing and about the ELR. Meanwhile, I had met Rob Rogers at The Locoshed and he was sorting out the mechanical/electrical issues with my Dad's locos. Dismantling his layout (at my Mum's request), I discovered that his baseboards had warped in several places - it turned out he had rescued them from his previous layout. With his stock stored, track lifted and locos in the process of being repaired/restored, I hope one day to produce a small exhibition layout in his memory, and dedicate it to my father, an average modeller but a superstar Dad.

 

Steve S

 

 

 

 

['CHARD]

What a moving and heartfelt tribute, Steve.  I'm sure your dad would be so touched by those reflections, moreover that you tell a familiar story for those of us whose lives have been touched by dementia - I can see complete parallels with my late mum.  Thank you for taking the time to compose such a poignant yet positive post, I hope it helped in some way putting those thoughts and memories to 'paper.'  Take care.

[Bucoops]

Thank you for the beautiful tribute to your father. Dementia is a horrible horrible thing, I feel so sad that your family had to go through that.

 

Sorry for your loss, your father sounds very similar to my Grandad. Always on the look out for a new path to go down.

[Kendo54]

What a tremendous tribute to your late father. I am sure that he would be both heartened and proud to have "done his job as a dad" and have left behind a person who can express himself so eloquently in this time of grief.

May you find solace in the fact that you have not let him down.

 

My father suffered dementia. Your comments that "dementia slowly steals away skills as well as memories" is 100% accurate. 

 

My father's favourite composer was Antonin Dvorak. He would comment on the subleties of his compositions and the way he incorporated folk tunes into them. Our last conversation was about Dvorak's Symphony No 9. I spoke for a couple of minutes and then he said "I don't know what you are talking about". I excused myself, left the room and cried. 

 

No prizes for guessing the music at the funeral.

[Legend]

A very touching post . Having lost both my parents I understand what you are going through . The love for your Dad shines through in the post .

 

Take care . 

[SteveyDee68]

5 hours ago, Kendo54 said:

My father's favourite composer was Antonin Dvorak. He would comment on the subleties of his compositions and the way he incorporated folk tunes into them. Our last conversation was about Dvorak's Symphony No 9. I spoke for a couple of minutes and then he said "I don't know what you are talking about". I excused myself, left the room and cried. 

 

No prizes for guessing the music at the funeral.

 

I'm also having to write something to share with the brass band community, as Dad played the BBb Bass (like a tuba on steroids) most of his life, playing in bands from when he was 14 until he was 70 years old! Most modelling acquaintances would be totally unaware of his banding activities, and vice versa!

 

He retired from playing at 70 because, in his own words, "I don't want to be known as the old chap struggling at the back". We think he was struggling to read his music - possibly the first indication of what was to come.

 

He didn't come from a musical family, but through his encouragement to learn an instrument I ended up taking a music degree, and my younger sister has played in and for top rank brass bands! We were discussing music for his funeral service - sadly, we can neither have a brass band play nor even my own brass ensemble perform due to new restrictions, but equally we are struggling to select music! He had such an eclectic taste, from classical to brass/military bands, James Last, pan pipes, musicals and Katie Melua (the last possibly due to Terry Wogan being a huge fan!) The only recording that springs to mind as something we always associated with him seems completely inappropriate - Tijuana Christmas !

 

Thank you all for the kind comments and reactions. I didn't expect that at all, and explained to my Mum that I wanted something to remember him as a modeller, which was such an important part of his life. I've read out the responses, and she has been touched by them, as I am, all those thoughts, comments and condolences from (to her) complete strangers. RMWeb members demonstrating that despite differences in scale, interests, age or background that we are a supportive and caring community.

 

Thank you.

[SteveyDee68]

Whilst sorting some items in the loft after his death, I came across my Dad's portable drawing board. I've kept it, and all the draughting tools I could find and just now thought I would use them to help me accurately draw up a building outline using Scalescenes kits as templates.

 

Upon opening it, I've discovered his very last drawing - what appears to be a general arrangement drawing of the LMS 4-4-0 tender loco he intended to 'correct' or 'improve'.

 

He hadn't notated it, or else his distinctively clear lettering would clearly identify it as his work, but I recognise his style. It's a bit of a shock - I didn't know it was there!

 

Although only a few pencil lines on an A4 piece of paper, I think I shall frame it as a momento.

 

Steve S