Gary
Frightening how time flies by at such an insane rate of knots and how things change, sometimes for the better and sadly sometimes for the worse.
Remembering signing into the forum in years gone by and the sense of excitement at seeing a new thread set up by Gary, unveiling another vintage machine that he had managed to save, either via a long drive from his home in the south west or via word of mouth from the local recycling centres in the Plymouth and Saltash areas.
Machines squirrelled a safe distance away from the scrap metal skip, for Gary to drop by later to collect.
The actual Hoover Electron 1100 (or was it an 800?) that was sack trucked into the centre where he worked to be disposed of, but which was taken straight to his car to be saved.
The long drives he made to save a Hoover 3203 and A3062 Keymatic, the Computer Logic and the matching Sensor dryer.
Managing to finally secure one of his favourite machines - Hoover A3060 Electronic 1100 - and my late father and myself driving to Cornwall Avenue in Darlington to collect it for him, before it made it's way down to Saltash via layovers in Crewe and Cardiff. Always thought it uncanny that it would finish up moving to Cornwall to live in Gary's collection, it having lived in Cornwall Avenue since it was first purchased back in 1978.
The most magic moment for me was when he announced in his thread titled 'Finally its happened to me right in front of my eyes but words cant describe it', that the first Hoover matchbox had finally surfaced and been saved!
His threads can be found in the forum archives and his videos are on YouTube and stand as part of the testament to the contribution he made to machine preservation in the UK over the years.
Other chapters of that testament are the knowledge he shared, the friends he made and the machines he saved, most of the latter now residing in other collections and of course his generosity and cutting wit (the SNOB powder, the Philips Twin Tub set that he gave to Mathew and of course 'our lady').
The photos below are from 2009, when he visited Mathew and filmed his Hoover 3203 Keymatic De Luxe and A3114 Selectamatic 1100, the vidoes of which can be watched on YouTube ....
