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John Fozard


coachmann

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It is with particular sorrow that I record the tragic death of my long-time friend, John Fozard. He was perhaps best known on here as proprietor of 'North Eastern Design', manufacturer of RTR brass LNER & Constituent 4mm scale carraiges and kits.

 

We met in the early 1970's, as he and I were involved in bus preservation along with a mutual friend, John Holmes. While my interest was short-lived, John continued his involvement with buses until very recently when he sold his London Transport RM. When I took up photography in 1976 John was there to print my negatives in his capacity as a full-time printer. If you buy postcards at exhibitions it is ten to one they were printed by John.  

 

A staunch Yorkshireman, his early working career was with Samual Ledgard, a private bus operator in Leeds. While there serving as a mechanic, he taught himself to drive by moving buses around Ledgard's yard. This was very much John....He believed firmly in self-dependance and independance. He learned to operate CAD in recent years and yet I believe he had barely written a letter on a PC prior to that!  We both took a similar path by producing RTR brass coaches as a sideline to our regular bread 'n butter work, but John went the whole hog by buying a whitemetal casting machine so he had full control of production. When Northstar Design ceased doing my CAD work, John kindly stepped in at the right moment. My ideas on components remained unchanged but I gladly left detail design to him, which I referred to as Fozzy's magic touch.

 

 As we enter old age we expect to lose friends especially when they are older than us. But John's passing knocked me for six; he was a young man in my eyes and it was unnexpected. I have never known a man with such a zest for life. He was off to France to photograph buses last time we spoke and was planning some GNR corridor coaches that we both wanted and an LMS tourist third which he wanted for his Whitby layout. 

 

His son Simon told me that he took his dad to Oldham to sample the new yellow trams, so his dad had at least realised an ambition to ride through Mumps Bridge on a tram.

 

My sincere condolences to his family.

 

Rest in Peace John my dear friend.

 

Larry Goddard

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Larry, so sorry to hear of your friend's passing, no doubt you will miss him greatly. Another huge loss to the railway modelling world as well as to his family and friends.

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Blimey, that's rather knocked me back as well. I'd not long had some coaches from him and was looking forward to what he had planned. I met him a few years ago at Darlington show - a really nice bloke and very approachable. A very sad loss. My condolences to his family.

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Knocked sideways by this news. I've known John since the late eighties when we were both involved with bus preservation, and caught up again recently with his North Eastern stuff. A huge loss, my sympathies to all those involved. Thank you Larry for posting this and my commiserations on losing another friend.

 

Mike

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks Worsdel, So nice to see John F. and as Mike says,  so modest and unnasuming. He liked to talk buses in West Yorkshire and an hour would pass in no time (always rang each other at 8pm to give us an hour as Mrs.coach called me into the living room at 9pm to watch a recorded movie with her. If something took John's interest, he excelled. His artwork for etching was the best I have even seen and while I was more than satisfied with the first coach he prepared for me, he went a few stages better on the next coach without any prompting. His Gresley and Thompson range took a battering from Hornby but he was phylosophical and etched a Hull & Barnsley coach next....."They won't do that one for a few years" he said laughing.

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It is with particular sorrow that I record the tragic death of my long-time friend, John Fozard. He was perhaps best known on here as proprietor of 'North Eastern Design', manufacturer of RTR brass LNER & Constituent 4mm scale carraiges and kits.

 

We met in the early 1970's, as he and I were involved in bus preservation along with a mutual friend, John Holmes. While my interest was short-lived, John continued his involvement with buses until very recently when he sold his London Transport RM. When I took up photography in 1976 John was there to print my negatives in his capacity as a full-time printer. If you buy postcards at exhibitions it is ten to one they were printed by John.  

 

A staunch Yorkshireman, his early working career was with Samual Ledgard, a private bus operator in Leeds. While there serving as a mechanic, he taught himself to drive by moving buses around Ledgard's yard. This was very much John....He believed firmly in self-dependance and independance. He learned to operate CAD in recent years and yet I believe he had barely written a letter on a PC prior to that!  We both took a similar path by producing RTR brass coaches as a sideline to our regular bread 'n butter work, but John went the whole hog by buying a whitemetal casting machine so he had full control of production. When Northstar Design ceased doing my CAD work, John kindly stepped in at the right moment. My ideas on components remained unchanged but I gladly left detail design to him, which I referred to as Fozzy's magic touch.

 

 As we enter old age we expect to lose friends especially when they are older than us. But John's passing knocked me for six; he was a young man in my eyes and it was unnexpected. I have never known a man with such a zest for life. He was off to France to photograph buses last time we spoke and was planning some GNR corridor coaches that we both wanted and an LMS tourist third which he wanted for his Whitby layout. 

 

His son Simon told me that he took his dad to Oldham to sample the new yellow trams, so his dad had at least realised an ambition to ride through Mumps Bridge on a tram.

 

My sincere condolences to his family.

 

Rest in Peace John my dear friend.

 

Larry Goddard

That's very sad news indeed, John was a great guy, always helpful and positive, they say it's the good ones that die young, in John's case, very true.  Rest in Peace.  Charlie Petty.

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