Henry Porter Obituary - NZFMM

Henry  was one of those people who could look at any picture of machinery and  could then re-create it in Meccano with all the appropriate parts  working as they should in the real machine. He used any system parts  in his creations which were often a mixture of Meccano, Marklin, Trix, Erector, etc, plus any other suitable parts collected at the time.

He  grew up in the town of Berwick in the Scottish borders, a sickly lad who  was often off school because of illness (scarlet fever) and was alone  in a large old house. He had his Hornby train set to play with but at  about age 7 he sold it and bought a Meccano set. Meccano was to become a  lifelong hobby.

He used to bring many and varied models along to the  club meetings ( there are 2856 on flickr ) many of which just had  balls, belts ,chains and cogs whizzing about to no particular purpose. These creations Henry called his contraptions and he delighted in making  them. I recall him using rare aero parts to create some of these  much to the surprise of Aero collector Richard Sealey who threw up his  arms in horror when seeing how some of these parts were used! I  learnt a great deal from Henry over the years and always admired his  ability to get stuck in and create new models. He had little time for  model plans preferring to go it alone and encouraging others to do the  same. He would often work on his models long into the night on his  creations, some of which such as the large German rail gun, Gustav, were  too large to move outside the model room. His Herman the German floating crane took 3 people to move it.

A dedicated modeler and a genius in his own right, we will miss you Henry. Rest in peace.

Further photos and videos of Henry's creations can be found here..  https://www.flickr.com/photos/meccanohig/albums/72157617191989900

Further photos of Gustav the rail gun can be found here…. https://www.flickr.com/photos/meccanohig/albums/72157617168937764

Gary Higgins
AMG secretary