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By: - 21st May 2015 at 13:32 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
That is sad to hear - his Yorkshire sense of humour will be missed by many people, including those at NAM who knew him.
By: - 21st May 2015 at 14:07 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Very sad news.
Steve was such a character, who had time for everyone.
A good friend to many who will be greatly missed, but also remembered.
Pete
By: - 21st May 2015 at 14:27 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Sad to hear... it was always pleasant to catch up with Steve during visits to Aeroventure; and I remember his pride in the WW1 exhibit that was being set up last time I was there. He had a very dry sense of humour which never failed to catch me out or have me in fits of giggles.
Regards
Rich
By: - 21st May 2015 at 14:39 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Very sad news, have not seen Steve for many years but enjoyed much of his company in the early years of the Night Fighter Preservation Trust
A truly helpful individual and one that will be greatly missed
By: - 21st May 2015 at 14:40 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I can echo only what has been said, especially with regard to his sense of humour.
By: - 21st May 2015 at 15:02 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Very sad news indeed :(
By: - 21st May 2015 at 17:09 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Very sad news indeed, I knew he was ill, but this was still a shock. His humour was indeed legendary he always made me smile, I will miss him. He was also a good friend of the Victor team at Elvington, he will be missed.
By: - 21st May 2015 at 19:02 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Having witnessed Steve chairing many a BAPC meeting with wit and drive,like XH558 he will be impossible to replace...even if he was always rude about helicopters !
By: - 21st May 2015 at 19:24 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Steve always seemed to sum up his health as 'pretty crap' ! I guess he meant it ! Blue skies Steve !
By: - 21st May 2015 at 19:48 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Yes, some of Steve's accounts of ordinary, everyday Yorkshire folk were funny, but his tales concerning some of the more extraordinary Yorkshire folk were even funnier, and he had lots of them!
Must be forty years since we first met*. Bless you Steve, I'll miss you.
*More like thirty five (it just seems longer!)
By: - 21st May 2015 at 20:45 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Ok, here's an attempt. This is a personal recollection. Memories have been coming to me all afternoon.
I first met Steve at the Mosquito Museum when he visited with Tony Agar. Must have been about 1989 at a guess. Tony had recently moved his project to Elvington, and found Steve there when he arrived. Steve attached himself to Tony, and in time, the Night Fighter preservation team was born. Steve was quite passionate about that idea to the point that he acquired the pitiful remains of Venom NF3 WX905 from the moribund Wales Aircraft Museum. He also fancied the idea of adding a Meteor, but that remained a dream.
Steve was ill from the day I first met him. To be honest it was what defined him to a large extent. He was a sufferer of Chrohns disease, which flared up regularly. He would go into hospital every other year to have another piece of bowel resected and emerge slightly more dour and slightly more depressed than the previous time. Before his diagnosis, he had worked for the British Library, but to my knowledge, he did little paid work once his illness progressed to the point it was affecting his life.
He was not however, the kind of person to slip on his slippers and don a flat hat, the lay down and die. When I met him, he cheerfully (not a word you would associate much with Steve) admitted that he probably didn't have long. He was 27 or 28 at the time. He flung himself into voluntary work, at first with the Yorkshire Air Museum at Elvington, with Tony, with the museum, and also with the Yorkshire Helicopter team, and subsequently with Aeroventure at Doncaster.
I became the Mosquito Museum rep for the BAPC in the early 90's, and Steve did the same for NFPT. I think he did too for YAM, but I can't be sure. I would catch up with him regularly at meetings up and down the country, and always went away with a smile on my face. Steve thrived on being the image of the dour Yorkshireman, but had a wicked underlying sense of humour that everyone who knew him will well remember him for. He always signed off with a terrible joke, well told, as only Steve could.
Steve was something of a Luddite, and he wouldn't mind me saying as much. He mistrusted technology, and he claimed that he only bought a computer to help him with the running of the BAPC. He entrusted me with his email address over the phone, but once I had it, I did note that he responded within a reasonably short space of time, so I had my suspicions. Prior to that, we used to correspond via the good offices of Naylan Moore, attempting to find the most revolting pornogrpahy images to gross one another out. Steve always won that one. Some Luddite...
When the chairmanship of the BAPC came available, Steve put his name forward, and threw himself into it headfirst. It was something that gave him a great deal of pleasure and he did it very well. He will be difficult to replace. He chaired the meeting with wit and humour, something I often try to replicate as a chair of school governors, but I will never match him.
Some random memories:
The Kippax kid. Steve lived in Kippax for most, or all of his life. He lived with his parents, who both predeceased him. Although he professed a dislike for the place, suggesting it had a sepia tone, he nevertheless collected historical information about the place.
The Black Pig. A 1940's Rover 10. The first time we went up to Elvington, he took us to the pub in it. Scary..
Single Malt. Steve was partial do a drop of the Scottish from time to time. My stocks were often depleted after he left. To be fair, he did replace them on future visits!
Steve was an individual.Unique. I hadn't spoken to him for a couple of years; life got in the way. I will miss the old ******.
Blue skies Steve. Blue skies...
By: - 21st May 2015 at 21:23 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Sums Steve up well Bruce
My other half's only seen Steve on a few occasions and say's its spot on.
computers were the devils work - Black Magic and sorcery
I remember "Porn Wars" well - "put me off my pie once"
Many projects, museums and groups benefited from Steve's input
He'll be missed
Naylan
By: - 21st May 2015 at 21:36 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
RIP Steve - I don't think I ever saw him laugh, but plenty of people around him in stitches..... not a meeting went by without me leaving shaking my head at his view of the world, he made me feel like life was there to be sneered at and Yorkshire will always be proud of him. He probably wouldn't like blue, so grey skies Steve!
By: - 21st May 2015 at 21:41 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Hi Steve, how are you?
'Crap thanks..'
By: - 21st May 2015 at 23:13 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Steve - 'orchestrating' the members at a BAPC Meeting at the De Havilland Aircraft Museum on 19th May 2007.
By: - 21st May 2015 at 23:25 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
What a thoroughly nice chap, and a big blow to hear this news.
No airs and graces, straight talking, polite and, as remarked upon by others, that unique wit and humour. I liked Steve a lot and he had no qualms about talking to the likes of me!
That he became, and succeeded, as chair of the BAPC was, I thought at first, odd. However, any doubts were soon dispelled and I believe he is the best chairman they have ever had, mainly for the reasons stated above.
He'll be hard to replace and sorely missed.
RIP Steve.
Mike Davey.
By: - 22nd May 2015 at 00:14 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
Will miss the old bu**er :D
I bet he's up there now laughing at the irony that these comments are appearing on "the FlyPast Forum" Whenever at a BAPC meeting I might mention reading something on "the FlyPast Forum" he gave the impression I had been consorting with the Devil - he played the Luddite part for all it was worth.
He exercised his sense of humour regularly and I don't think I ever saw him without a suit on!
RIP Steve.
Roger Smith.
By: - 22nd May 2015 at 01:04 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I bet he's up there now laughing at the irony that these comments are appearing on "the FlyPast Forum" Whenever at a BAPC meeting I might mention reading something on "the FlyPast Forum" he gave the impression I had been consorting with the Devil - he played the Luddite part for all it was worth.
That made me laugh, I heard similar from him! But I suspect the 'Luddite' was a carefully crafted image.
I knew Steve through modelling, and whilst I only met him a few times, we corresponded through e-mail on and off for several years. He was always one to find the odd or obscure part or photograph, especially related to Harriers.
He will be sorely missed by all who knew him.
By: - 22nd May 2015 at 04:59 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
I only met Steve once, at a BAPC meeting held at the City of Norwich Aviation Museum back in the 90s, but that memory has stayed with me. My condolences to his family and friends.
By: - 22nd May 2015 at 19:34 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00
STEVE PT.1
Sorry if its a bit long but I knew him for a long time and Part 2 breaks it up a bit with a sum up.
Yes Bruce has captured a lot of what made Steve who he was along with other contributions - such a Wickedly Dry Yorkshire Wit that I could probably design a beer label for it. I met him sometime in the early 90's and in the last year in particular we mailed each other regularly as I followed his decline and frustration at GP's. I've put some of it down here in Pt.2 as aside from the trials he was suffering not just from his ailments but the lack of concern from GP's (including refused referrals that he felt were purely down to cost) it also shows that despite it all, his humour was still shining through.
*
He was continually scathing of GP's in his final year and their lack of logic in dealing effectively with his case besides the referral issue, along with unthinking hospital lapses in anticipating when he would need supplies of drugs that he had not been told were not available at specific times. In the end I told him to be a bit more forceful, horrified after he told me of two evenings when one GP said while standing in the doorway (after he had waited a considerable time) that he hoped it wouldn't take too long as he had other things on, while another almost made him say 'You just want to get home and have dinner don't you, palming me off with more ineffective antibiotics that I don't need'.
*
Towards the end I told him that he had to give up BAPC and just stay with AeroVenture for his health - as you will see further on, the travelling alone was wearing him down as he couldn't do long distances and careful planing was needed - especially when his car started giving similar terminal problems and he had to start using public transport.
*
Time will only confirm more markedly what an indispensable person he was to BAPC, and to people also. He threw himself into many things and seemed never happier than wandering around aeroboots dispensing updates, Yorkshire wit and painfully accurate impersonations of people who had raised his ire including one source who had treated him disgracefully with mean and ungrateful machinations. One in particular was my personal favourite and he seemed to find his forte at AV, working in the shop there while dealing with his BAPC duties and everything else that life threw in the way of his health. It was selfish of me perhaps, that despite everything I knew of his health along with*his spiralling condition at hospital, I still expected him to pull through.
*
There is a GR3 at Elvington that his initiative fostered along with later bits added, and he has made a mark that will be remembered in preservation. He was also instrumental in saving the former LAHC Vulcan CDT after the VTTST proved unwilling to pick the item up themselves and the first sale fell through. After I mentioned this to him he swung into action with BAPC contacts and between them and VTTST we worked to make pick up and delivery arrangements ourselves along with payments, ensuring that it was saved and passed on.
*
I was told originally by my original VTTST contact at Finningley that 6 months would be needed to build a stand for the item (the oldest piece of Vulcan built, made before the prototype flew) but it had to go from its Surrey location fast, and AeroVenture kindly took it on re temporary storage. Much time later it was still there however and I'm not sure if it is in fact still there today. Many other people will know something of Steve's positive effects on preservation too I'm sure.
*
He was pleased to get some Harrier cockpit parts from me around 5 years ago at knockdown price and told me he had secreted them away in his loft for a future project while a BAe manual followed later, he was very pleased though when around 3 years ago I bought a cache of German 72nd scale bombers (yes, they're in the loft but they were just so nice). Beautifully painted by a deceased model maker that had left his collection with NAM to raise some funds, I duly presented him with a favourite of his which was a FW189? (the one with the cockpit on one wing and the engine on the other), but on mailing him shots of the other models I was surprised at his knowledge of them all - he had specialist Luftwaffe books also along with other reference and could always be relied on to sort an aviation query or ID a plane which was suspect.
Posts: 8,464
By: Bruce - 21st May 2015 at 13:29
I'm sorry to have to report that Steve Hague, Chairman of the BAPC, stalwart of the preservation movement, and all round good egg, passed away this morning.
In time I will post a fuller contribution; it just needs some time.
Please do feel free to post your memories of one of preservations finest voices here.
Bruce