Kenneth John Mellor, one of the founders of Irish gliding, would have approved of the fact that the Dublin Gliding Club carried on flying on the day he was laid to rest. Following tradition, a glider dedicated to his memory took off from Gowran Grange airfield at the precise moment the service began, and his flying colleagues held a memorial service on the tarmac. He died on June 9th, aged 75.
Ken Mellor was an RAF veteran and an English gentleman. He grew up in Harrow, Middlesex, with his engineer father John, mother Ethel (nee Plenty) and his sister Joyce. He married his wife Kay (nee Highton) in 1954 and they have three children: Karen, Jacque and Ian.
Like many of his generation, he had little formal education in his early years, leaving school at 16 to work for the General Electric Company (GEC). While there, he went to evening classes at Acton Tech and several certificates and diplomas in engineering were discovered in a drawer after his death. "He was a very modest man who never liked to pull rank or boast about his achievements," says daughter Jacque. At 17 he was an air-raid spotter with the local reserve, watching for enemy aircraft from the roof of his Harrow house. His work making radio valves protected him from compulsory calls-up and his keen engineering mind was valued by GEC. They tried to dissuade him from joining up, but he volunteered anyway, enlisting in the airforce. Most of the second World War he spent in the former Rhodesia, staying on to train new recruits at the RAF's Guinea Fowl advanced air school. "Dad was very upset at being prevented from going into combat, but he got such excellent results it was decided he would stay on and train other pilots," says his son John. Business took Ken Mellor to Ireland after the war, working for his father's paper products company. In 1953 in Dublin he met Kay, the English girl who was to become his wife. His life-long passion for gliding began with a chance meeting with Freddie Heinzl, a Luftwaffe pilot who had been shot down over Wexford and interned in the Curragh. With their shared interest in flying, the two answered a letter in the Evening Mail from Charlie O'Connor, who was keen to form a gliding club. When the British government was disposing of wartime gliders in the early 1950s, Ken Mellor put in a tender on behalf of the new club. "Somehow, he ended up with a dozen gliders for under £12 each," says flying instructor Dan Begley. Gliding was to become for Ken Mellor his true calling. He was, in turn, chief flying instructor, chairman of the Dublin Gliding Association, chief technical officer, chairman of the Irish Gliding Association and president of the Irish Aviation Council. In recent years he received the Paul Tissandier Award from the Federation Aeronautique Internationales. Back in the early 1960s, gliders were fragile creations made from wood with the wings covered with fine cotton gauze. These were single-seaters and the instructions were relayed by Ken Mellor from the ground using a megaphone. He was an enthusiastic glider pilot and on one flight remained airborne for over eight hours.
In tandem with his gliding interests, he continued to work in the paper business. His knowledge of paper, coupled with his engineering background and inventive talents made him a popular figure in Dublin's packaging and food industry. Import substitution was one of his later interests and producing a locally-made disposable cup became a major project in his later years.
Most weekends, the family towed their glider to Baldonnel in a specially constructed glider trailer.
He bore the Parkinson's disease which gradually incapacitated him with great cheerfulness. A favourite song, Always look on the bright side of life, was played at his funeral. Making and flying model gliders kept him in touch with his beloved sport. Up to the end, he regularly visited the gliding club and continued to be an active supporter.
"The glider pilots of Ireland owe Ken Mellor an un-repayable debt," says Dan Begley of his friend.
Kenneth John Mellor: born 1924; died June, 1999
