It is with great sadness that we put up this tribute to Malcolm Roper following his passing on March 15, 2003.
I'll leave the words to the man who knew Malcolm best, Pat Dalton.
This morning, Saturday 15th March, I received a phone call from Malcolm’s daughter to tell me her father had died last night. Many of you will not have heard of Malcolm Roper, his was a very quiet approach to the hobby, staying quietly in the back ground, but always willing to help anyone with advise, who wanted it.
He mailed on the 19th March last year, soon after S&C 1930 was released, sending me timetables, engine loadings and other information on the S&C, at the same time offering me any help he could give in providing buildings for further development of the route.
His building skills using TSM developed greatly, each building being better than the last, always upgrading what he previously produced, thus making my job of building the route far easier and much more satisfying. From then on it became “our” route, Malcolm providing everything from suitcases, boxes of vegetables to a completely new Carlisle Citadel station, no job was ever too big or small for him.
I have to admit our relationship had a few ups and downs, Malcolm most likely due to side effects from the various medications he was taking and me being a rather grumpy old sod at the best of times, but a phone call always had us ending up having a laugh and planning the next part of the project, Malcolm always being a gentleman.
Unfortunately he did not manage to see the latest and last version of Skipton 1920, he received it on his last morning with us, but sadly was unable to run it.
I shall miss Malcolm; I shall miss the phone calls, where we would have three or four books on the route, open in front of us, trying to make out some signal gantry in the far distance of a not very good picture. I shall greatly miss our daily E-mails, with on most day’s attachments, much of the satisfaction has gone from the hobby.
Malcolm came from Hinckley in Leicestershire, served in the RAF for a number of years and was a draughtsman in civilian life, living in various parts of England. He and his wife Ruth have lived in Rhyl for a number of years, where until his health deteriorated, ran a boarding house.
It was a privilege for me to have known Malcolm, to have met him and worked with him, I shall miss him very much.
To Ruth and her family I send our condolences.
Malcolm helped out at the Beaconsfield exhibition, talking to people about the work that was taking place on
the Skipton to Carlisle project.
From everyone at UKTrainSim.com we would like to join Pat and extend our deepest condolences to Ruth and her family for their loss.
