Geoff Holt

[Jol Wilkinson]

I have just heard through the LNWR Society that Geoff Holt passed away late on Friday 21 April.

 

He was a superb modeller of 7mm locos and his both his models and books have great inspiration for modellers in all gauges. Another sad loss.

 

Jol Wilkinson

[Horsetan]

Completely unexpected. We'll never get to read Part 2 of his locomotive building book now :-(

[micknich2003]

I never meet him, but he was a great insperation, I first became aware of his work via his "MRN" articles of the '60's and '70's. Hopefully, Vol 11 is already with Wild Swan and will eventualy appear. Both his models and his writting are his legacy. 

[Ressaldar]

I understand that Geoff had corrected the proof for Vol 2 and it is now back with Wild Swan, so we shall have both volumes as part of Geoff's legecy to the hobby.

 

regards

 

Mike

[coachmann]

The week before Geoff Holt passed away I brought some old Modellers Backtrack mags into the house from the garage to re-read some of his articles. I don't know what prompted this, but the upshot was I was going to pop over for a chat the following Monday. Therefore the message I received before Monday arrived came as a dreadful shock. We hadn't visited each other for a while although we kept in touch by phone, a complete turn-around from the days when we collaborated regularly on various 7mm and 10mm projects involving mutual friends. David Jenkinson used to stay over at Geoff's (and vice-versa), and as my wife worked and the house was empty, we often met up at mine to chew the fat.

 

Looking back at those days talking all things LMS brought a smile and the day when I ended up with a bruised shin came to mind for some reason. On this occasion David J. had brought along a Gauge One 'Compound' that he had picked up at auction, placed it on one of my shelves and said "Right Larry, give me your honest opinion". Geoff' looked distincly uncomfortable at this, although I didn't twig why at first. I replied "It captures the look of a Compound a treat but that.......". I stopped in mid-sentence when Geoff gave me a hefty kick in the shin! "Carry on" said David, who hadn't spotted this nifty assault, but I just finished by saying it was a beautiful model.

 

When David popped off to the boys room I looked at my bleeding leg and asked Geoff what the kick was all about. "I knew what you were going to say that's why...... It's alright you pointing out the bloody faults, but I get the bloody job of putting them right...!"

 

That is just one anecdote. Geoff was a different generation to me having been born before the war and I think he viewed me as a young 'un. He often talked about his spotting days around Stockport shed before the war and remembered with fondness ex-works unrebuilt 'Royal Scots' rolling in carrying the beautiful LMS crimson lake. He also had an involvement with Stockport's trams collecting the heavy glass windows for his employer that had been removed when the cars were being scrapped. I never did discover what that was all about. We first met many years ago while he was teaching in Boston. At the time he moved to North Wales some years later, Geoff Platt was here and it seemed everyone involved with railway modelling was retiring here at the time.

 

Loosing friends is an innevitable process of getting old but it doesn't get any easier for all that. With Geoff's passing, I felt the world was getting smaller.

 

R.I.P old friend.

 

Larry G.