Secretary
Len gave details of the Remembrance Sunday preparations. Newsletters had been received from London and North Midlands Branches.
Treasurer
Len reported that the Branch funds were satisfactory.
Chairman
Frank regretted that the Branch would be unable to attend the Remembrance Service at Bury this year but he would ask the Sea Cadets to represent them. However the Branch would attend a Service and wreath laying at the Torpedo Memorial on Sunday 15th November. He then produced an article (below) which he thought would be of interest to members who had all served in the legendary Fairmile boats during WW2.
Albert Noel Campbell Macklin (1886-1946) was invalided from the Army, as a Captain, in 1915. He then joined the RNVR, serving with the Dover Patrol until the end of the war. In 1925 he founded a car company, Invicta. Followed by Railton in 1933. Railton cars were manufactured by the Fairmile Engineering Company in Cobham, Surrey. The name came from John Railton, the world speed record car designer, who thought that the name FairmiIe gave the image of a fast sports car.
At the outbreak of WW2, Macklin, ever the innovator, closed the successful Railton Car Company and, inspired by an article on the urgent need for small boats for the Royal Navy, founded Fairmile Marine for the manufacture of small naval vessels. The Admiralty, though sceptical at first, placed an order for Fairmile boats, then 'rewarded' MackIin’s enterprise by requisitioning the Cobham site. Though the Fairmile factory produced motorboats, gunboats, torpedo boats and spares valued at E35 million during the war, Macklin was awarded only £20,000 (and a knighthood). He died, a disappointed man, in 1946.
