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Alan Joe Ridge.
1934 - 2007
An Appreciation given by Mary Corbould,
at a Service held at Christ’s Church, Bedford on the 7th of July
2007, to commemorate the Life & Times of Joe
Ridge, who sadly died while visiting
Germany
on the 9th of May 2007.
Some
people are able to say that they have a friend who shaped their life. I had such a friend and that was Alan – or as
I always knew him – Joe, a name which came from his army days.
We
met as students at teacher training college in Bishops Stortford in the late
1960s. Our college, Hockerill College,
was a women’s college at that time with male mature students allowed in. He was such a student, although there were
only twelve years between us. I came
straight from school but Joe had already done and experienced so much. He joined the army as a boy soldier, he had
served overseas, and particularly in Germany,
he had married Lena while living in Germany, and they had three
children: Ella, Denise and Sylvia. In
the late 60s he was living in Harlow, not
far from college. We always got on
well, but it was not until very near the end of my three years at college
that we became close friends, and this was to lead to the beginning of my
life being shaped by Joe. At this time
he introduced me to his friends, Tony and Pam Plummer, who lived in Norfolk. Tony and Joe had been in the army together
and their families were close, having children of similar ages. The Plummers became firm friends and remain
so today.
Joe
and I stayed in touch when I left college – he was still a student, being a
year below me. At this time he was
often on his own with the three girls and did a wonderful job bringing them
up. Their father was an important figure
in their childhood and I was privileged to spend to share some time with them
during this period. I liked their
company, and much later in their lives, Denise and Sylvia shared my home in Norwich for a while. I would visit them at Harlow at weekends,
ad one weekend I picked up the local paper and saw an advert for air
stewardesses wanted at Stansted
Airport. Stansted was still a small operation at
this time, but I had little idea that this advert would change the course of
my life. Joe dared me to go along to
the open interview being held that afternoon, as I was, with no special
clothes, and they offered me a job, wanting me to start at the end of the
month. As a teacher, I couldn’t do
that, but I agreed to join them the following season. It’s a long story, but I ended up living in
Switzerland for the next five years, something I would not have donehad I not
been with Joe that weekend: it is he
that was the catalyst for the most significant opportunity of my life.
When
Joe left college, ever mindful of having to provide a home for the girls, he
had several teaching jobs which were not run of the mill. This was something I always admired in him:
there were, for example, a spell at a boys’ approved school, and another at a
primary school in rural Norfolk
which came with a school house for the teacher and his family. I remember visiting him there on one of my
trips home when I was living abroad, and finding him just the same person as
I had known at college – always wanting the best for the individual, always
trying to get them to realise their maximum potential and offering a quiet
guiding hand.
Empowering
people was perhaps his special gift, which showed itself again years later in
his life when he chose to care for less able people in their own homes,
enabling them to live independently for as long as possible with a little
quiet help from Joe.
In
the 1980s I moved to Norwich,
having fallen in love with the area when Joe took me to his friends in
Wymondam when we were students. He,
too, was in Norwich at that time, looking after Henry, and the two of them
got on very happily – so much so, that when Joe, or Alan as he must now be
known, met Jenny, Henry moved with them to Bedfordshire. Ella, too, had come to live in Norwich, and Sylvia and
Denise had various jobs in the area.
When Ella died we were all reunited:
Alan and Jenny and Daisy, Denise and James, Sylvia, Lena
and me. That sad occasion was an
example when both of his families wee united, and Joe had a way about him
that made everyone feel special.
He
has made me feel special today. Thank
you Jenny, for giving me the opportunity to reflect on times in my life when
Joe touched my life. He will be missed
by us all, but we will be the stronger and better people for having known
him.
The Story of
the Mono Project by Jenny, wife of Alan
Ridge.
Sometime
during 1990 Alan had a vision that Colin Chapman told him that the way
forward for an environmentally friendly car was a single seater; and that
Alan should ask Frank Costin to design it..
This had been in Alan’s mind for quite a while, but after this he
managed to contact Frank and they had a marvellous evening together. The result of this meeting was that Frank
and his sons moved into our house in Everton (we were living away at the
time) and Frank started to design the car.
By the end of 1991 the drawings were complete. Alan had the chassis made by Midas
Metalcraft at Little Staughton and the buck for the body was made
elsewhere. These, together with an
engine, were taken to Wales
to a car builder who had agreed to build the car. After many months the car was ready and we
were lucky enough to have the use of the private roads at Woodbury Hall near Sandy to put the car
through its paces. Look East came to
film it and we have the video of that.
Later on Top Gear agreed to film the car and on this occasion it was
taken to a race track to be put through its paces.
The
car is now in Wales
as the man who built the car decided to keep it in lieu of payment. I have asked if the car is still in use
and was told only yesterday that a friend of the builder used it on the roads
in Wales
for three months last year. I also
asked what it would cost for me to buy the car from him and was told that
taking into all the labour etc it would be £25,000 – what a shame, does
anyone know a entrepreneur who would like to put this little car back in
circulation.
Alan
was a man of many talents – he wrote poetry, children’s stories, musicals and
plays. He often had letters published
in the Telegraph and would often write to Radio 4. In his later life he cared for the
elderly, men and women, in their own homes, and they all exceeded their life
expectancy, he was so good at his job.
Alan Joe Ridge
driving The Mono.
Published: 15th July 2007
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