Roger Menadue
1912-2003
I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Roger Menadue back in 1992, at the
Healey event in Breckenridge, CO. Roger was somewhat of an unknown to the
Healey community, as members of the Healey family were (and still are)
sought after. Roger was content to stay back in the shadows. Dick Lunney,
the editor for the club magazine, had been in contact with Roger, and had
made arrangements for Roger to attend the event in CO. I had numerous phone
conversations and correspondence with Geoff Healey up that point, in
discussions about my Healey boat and Stave V tuned Sprite, and he was quite
happy to see his fishing buddy Roger getting an opportunity to share some of
the spotlight.
Roger was considered Donald Healey's right hand man. They'd met before WWII.
Roger was a little too old to be drafted into the service, and he spent much
of the war working in an airplane factory, and volunteering as a lookout in
Cornwall... watching for enemy bombers in the skies of England. Following
the war, he went to work with Donald, designing and building some of the
first Healeys. Materials in England's post war world were vary difficult to
come by. In fact, the chassis dimensions for many of the Healeys were
limited by the length of steel available. Roger had also saved every nut and
bolt ever taken off an airplane in for service, as regulations always
required replacing with new. He had quite a stash of high quality
fasteners... which were worth their weight in gold in post war England. If
you ever have the opportunity to examine any of the Riley engine Healeys, or
the special test cars, you'll see fasteners that Roger had squirreled away
during the war.
It was Roger, back in 1952 that had defied Donald Healey, and showed the new
Healey 100 prototype at the Earl's Court Show. Donald had decided he was
unhappy with the frontal treatment on the car... but Roger went ahead and
brought the car to the show anyway.. and of course, the rest is history.
Roger ran the Experimental Department at the Works. Sometimes alone...
later, with assistant like Jock Reid, and Jim Cashmore. Out of a small
garage, and on a shoestring budget, he built race cars that ran with the
best in the world. One Nash Healey he built in a period of two weeks (the
original car had been destroyed during testing) finished 3rd overall at
LeMans. That car, along with the Falcon bodied Sprite raced by John Colgate,
were his favorites. In his career, he built over 30 cars that ran at LeMans.
He also built the record setting Bonneville cars, the Sebring entries, the
Targa Florio cars. Virtually all Healeys that went into production were
built first as prototypes by Roger.
Dick Lunney had mentioned that following the event in Breckenridge, that
Roger was staying in the states for an addition 2 weeks, to participate in
another Healey event. (Roger was to celebrate his 80th birthday during this
time period.) I made arrangements to have Roger come back with us to IL and
stay in our home for a week. We scheduled a day or two up at Fourintune with
Tom Kovacs... as he and Steve Pike had discovered what they believed to be
NOJ 391 lurking under the identity of a 100S owned by Fred Hunter. We
scheduled an archeological dig of the car, and I managed to capture it all
on video tape. Six months later, we brought Geoff Healey over, and video
taped his inspection of the car as well. Despite it had been forty years
since either one had seen the car, there was only a few minor details that
either disagreed with, despite conducting their inspections separately, six
months apart. Later, I had the opportunity to edit all the footage together
in a little documentary called "Just In Time". The proceeds went to
memorials in Geoff Healey's name. The video has long been out of print, but
I hope to once again have copies available soon.
I remember we celebrated Roger's 80th at my kitchen table. My daughters Kate
and Emily were 6 and 4 at the time... and just adored him. He was so sweet
and kind to them. I think I still have pictures of him wearing a party hat
as we ate cupcakes. Our time together went by all too quickly.. but not
before Roger and I had developed a bond. We discussed various issues. We
argued. We laughed, and enjoyed one another's company. We went up to my
summer place in Wisconsin, and he and my father went fishing. We were sad to
see him go.
The following summer, Tom Kovacs, Mike Flaws, another Healey enthusiast, and
I pitched in to bring him back to the states for another extended visit. I
believe it had been that winter that Geoff Healey had passed away suddenly.
Roger's wife had passed just a few years earlier, and the loss of these
people greatly saddened Roger. He'd put on a happy face for the Healey
community... and, I suppose, it was the attention given to him that helped
him in some way deal with the loss.
Roger got a taste of vintage racing... as he crewed for me from small club
events at Blackhawk, to the huge Chicago Historic Races at Road America.
What a thrill for a bit player Healey enthusiast like me to have the Healey
Experimental Chief help me prepare my car. We also tackled various other
projects... he loved to work. He had amazing energy. We re-engineered the
roll bar on my Stage V tuned Sprite, the Bishop. The roll bar had come from
57 FAC, the Works Sebring car from 1963. I'd also picked up two mopeds at a
garage sale... with the intention of using them as pit bikes. Although they
had less than 200 miles on them, the tanks were full of rust and sediment.
We spent the better part of two days dismantling them. Roger took a bag of
sheet metal screws from the hardware store, a cup oil, and a 1/2 gallon of
gas, and dumped them in the fuel tanks. We shook them for hours.. the sharp
edges of the screws loosened the rust and sediment...and I ended up with two
nicely running mopeds.
On this trip, Roger presented me with his ID bracelet from LeMans. It was
required by the scrutineers at the French race, as only the approved
mechanic could work on the car. Everything was tagged and sealed, from the
crankcase on the engine, to the mechanic's tool box, to the mechanic
himself. He also gave me his MIRA Proving Ground General Driving Permit... a
facility where they'd often take the Works cars for testing. The gifts were
Roger's way of thanking me for bringing him over again, and he knew how much
I appreciated the history of Healey and his involvement. Roger also spent
time with the Flaws family, and Mike Flaws hosted a club party for Roger.
Then, Roger spent time up at Fourintune in Cedarburg, WI where Tom was
thrilled to have Roger help in an authentic recreation of NOJ 391. Geoff had
also given guidance and a Works number plate for the car, as it had his
blessing. The car was raced successfully by Phil Coombs, and then Mike
Carroll.
Roger and I kept in touch with an occasional phone call or letter, and we
always looked forward to his elegantly written Christmas cards. His elegant
handwriting always surprised me, although I suppose it shouldn't Roger was a
small, wiry man... yet his hands were huge from years and years of
wrenching. He admitted he didn't really care for writing by hand, as it took
him a lot of time to carefully craft the letters.
In 1998 I had the opportunity to go to the UK on business. I took the train
down to Cornwall, and stayed with Roger, his daughter Gaye, and son-in-law
Neil. They lived in a stone cottage, and Roger lived in a small trailer out
back. Roger showed me how he's devised a series of gutters and basins to
capture the rain water that he washed his clothes in and also water the
garden with. There was an old tool shed out back... and Roger showed me the
various projects he had going, and the tools he had made to assist in
building one certain Healey prototype or another. Roger had told me the
story of the Mechanic's Prize he'd been honored to receive at LeMans on two
occasions. One was a cash award.. and he never saw the money... it somehow
was appropriated along the way. The other Le Mans Mechanic's prize was a
gold plated beam style torque wrench. Funny thing was, Roger, in all his
years, never used a torque wrench. He related a story about a Nash factory
mechanic who was having trouble with head gaskets on one of the Nash Healey
race cars. Despite repeated attempts at torquing it down to spec, the
gaskets still failed repeatedly. Roger took a stab at it, using just "feel",
as was his method... and they never had a head gasket problem again with it.
Torque wrenches... he just didn't trust them. So, the gold plated one given
to whim ended up in the bottom drawer of his tool box...it's resting place
for 40 years or so. He went to the tool box, dug around, pulled it out, and
presented it to me as a gift.
We spent time, driving through Cornwall, as Rog showed me where he grew up,
where he met Donald Healey. He took me to Trebah...the estate once owned by
Donald, where, in the later years, they'd worked on various projects. The
following day, it was time to take the train back to London. Roger had
indicated it was not likely that he'd be able to make another cross Atlantic
flight to the US, as he felt with all the toils of travel, the time change
and all... it had become too much for him. We sat and talked. Roger,
although only five or six years older than my father, had become somewhat of
a grandfather figure for me. I loved the old man. We both teared up as we
hugged and said our good byes. As we talked, I think we both knew it might
be the last time we'd see each other again. It was. He's gone now. I'll
miss him.
Some Roger Menadue stories and pictures can be found at...
http://www.thicko.com/mechanic.htm
http://www.thicko.com/thicko.htm
http://www.thicko.com/healey.htm
http://www.thicko.com/videos.htm
Raise a class of Guinness today and toast Roger Menadue...a good man... one
of the finest I've ever known.
Wm. Severin Thompson
Team Thicko
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