WST, glad to hear the follow-up story. People who are a part of history are
always great fun to listen to. Glad I could have a part in the recognition.
Wish I could have been there personally.
Now for the Golden Torque Wrench....somehow this seems particularly fitting
for you. Maybe that was what you needed all along to solve your problem when
you were in the "blown head gasket era". When I want to mooch something
with a little class, I'll look you up.
GJB
-----Original Message-----
From: Wm. Severin Thompson <wsthompson@thicko.com>
To: Healey list <healeys@autox.team.net>; vintage race list
<vintage-race@autox.team.net>; british-cars@autox.team.net
<british-cars@autox.team.net>
Date: Thursday, October 30, 1997 5:07 PM
Subject: visit with Roger Menadue in the UK (long)
>To all,
>
>First off, thank you to all that participated in the "Mechanic's Prize"
>donations. For those that hadn't been following along, Roger Menadue was
>the Experimental Department Chief Engineer for the Donald Healey Motor
>Co. Roger's task was the construction of all Healey race cars and
>prototypes. He built over 30 cars that raced at LeMans.
>
>He constructed a car (Nash Healey) on 2 weeks notice in 1952 that
>finished 3rd overall behind 2 Mercedes. Somehow, even though he and his
>assistant were awarded the "Mechanic's Prize", he never saw the prize
>money... so we came up with it (without interest) 45 years later.
>
>Roger's 85 years old now, still quite active and in good health. He
>lives in Penryn, at the south of Cornwall in the UK. A few miles to the
>west is the Atlantic, and a few miles to the east is the English
>Channel. Roger lives in a small trailer on the modest property owned by
>his daughter Gay. She and her husband Neil live in a small granite
>cottage, originally built in the early 1800's. Mining in Cornwall was an
>important industry, and cooincidentally, the name Menadue means 'black
>rock" which exactly describes the granite that's mined there.
>
>I arrived there Saturday early afternoon, via the train from London.
>Roger met me at the station. He took me on a sight seeing tour of
>Falmouth, the port town at the base of the Fal River. We had a late
>lunch, then drove over to Trebah, the waterfront estate that Donald
>Healey once owned that is privately owned, but accepts the public to
>view it's extensive gardens. We had a pint there at the pub.
>
>We went back to Gay's cottage for a Cornish dinner. Prior to dinner, we
>went out to the cinder block shed that serves as Roger's workshop. He's
>always tinkering with something, or has some project going. His latest
>was fabricating a vent system that would draw outside aire from the
>garage for the wood burning stove, rather than the already heated inside
>air.
>
>After dinner, Roger got out the scrapbooks and we told stories and
>watched videos into the night.
>
>Sunday AM, we departed for Perranporth, the town on the Atlantic side
>for more sightseeing, then to the train station in time for the 11:00 AM
>train.
>
>One of the stories that Roger loves to tell is the fact that he never
>used a torque wrench ever in his career. He always torqued things "by
>feel" and never trusted the reading of a torque wrench. So, imagine his
>dismay one year when he won the Mechanic's Prize at LeMans and was
>awarded a gold plated torque wrench. He never used it!. It's been
>rattling around the bottom of his tool cabinet for years. The plating is
>faint, corrosion started here and there. He insisted on giving it to me.
>
>One of motor racing's unsung heroes, Roger Menadue.
>
>WST
>Team Thicko
>
>
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