Open Writing

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WALTER MURTON 1924 – 2006
A Tribute by Dr John Coles, 19th July 2006

Walter was born in 1924 in Wakefield, Yorkshire, a town a few miles south of Leeds. He was the middle child of five in a close and loving family. Part of his early life was spent on the Yorkshire moors where his Father kept the ‘Jaggars Arms’. After the family returned to live in Wakefield, Walter attended Rothwell Grammar School from where he won an Open Scholarship to Cambridge to read Mathematics and Science.

Walter went up to Corpus Christi in 1941, where he quickly joined the University Air Squadron. He eventually decided to put his studies on hold and volunteered for active service in the Royal Air Force. Accepted for training as a fighter pilot, he was given a choice of training camps in America. Seeing Miami, he said to himself, “I know where that is and it should be fun”. However, when he got there, it turned out to be the Miami in Oklahoma and not the one in Florida. Nevertheless, he enjoyed it very much, kept in touch with the family who hosted him and went back for the fiftieth anniversary of the Unit a couple of years ago. Having gained his wings and experience on several types of fighter aircraft, he returned to England in early 1944.

By that time, the need for fighter pilots was not as urgent, and Walter was seconded to the Glider Pilot Regiment where he converted to flying gliders. It was during this period that he met Ted Giles and they struck up a close friendship that lasted the rest of his life. At the age of 20, he was promoted to Flight Lieutenant, with most of his pilots being older than he was.

He went into action piloting a Horsa glider in the Rhine Crossing (code named Operation Varsity) in March 1945. He told me once that there was so much flak coming up that he took his helmet off and sat on it. Although the crossing was successful, the glider units suffered heavy casualties and he was posted to Tarrant Rushton for some Rest and Recreation.

With the end of the war, the Air Force found itself with thousands of bored young men that it did not know what to do with and so Walter was shunted from base to base. In addition, being young and single, he found that he had to wait two or three years to be demobbed.

However, by that time he had met Joan at Bradford on Avon, although her family was then living in Bath. Using his old car he managed to get to Bath to see her reasonably often from bases all around southern England. It was at this time that he confused his father-in-law to be by arriving to take Joan out in his RAF officer’s uniform one night and the following evening, appearing in his Glider Pilot Regiment Army uniform complete with red beret.

Finding that there was a four-year waiting list to return to Cambridge, Walter decided to take a teacher’s training course. In the meantime, he and Joan had married in February 1948. While doing the teaching course, he also took a University of London External Degree in Physics. After qualifying, he taught Maths and Science at the Heart of England High School, near Coventry for five years.

Finding a teacher’s salary insufficient to maintain his growing family, Walter joined Smiths Instruments in Cheltenham. Shortly afterwards he started a small company in Birmingham with a partner. This grew and they moved to Cheltenham, where the company was eventually taken over by Spirax Sarco. During this time, Walter designed much of the vacuum equipment used by NASA for testing components under conditions found in outer space. He published several papers on the results of these projects in the scientific literature.

As a result of this he was head hunted by ISCOR to design a vacuum furnace for specialist steel manufacture. This project was delayed and when Spirax Sarco needed a manager for their Bestobell subsidiary in South Africa, they head hunted him back. Walter said that he read with amusement the ISCOR annual reports, which, for years afterwards, continued to tell of the unfortunate delays to this project.

After a short period with Bells, he decided to start his own business again, Murton Industrial Controls. A friend and neighbour next door lent a small helping hand to this enterprise. Walter strung a telephone wire across to the neighbouring house and Jackie answered the phone and took messages when they were out or away. This arrangement lasted until a large delivery lorry came up the driveway and snapped the wire. The remains caused confusion for several telephone repairmen over the next few years.

After a period, Hilary’s husband, John, joined him as Project Manager and persuaded him to start manufacturing load-cells. This initiative lead to the formation of Loadtech of which John Coles eventually became Managing Director.

As his day-to-day business responsibilities eased, Walter found time to return to teaching and became a part-time lecturer at the Wits Business School and lecturer in Business Management for the Engineering Department at Wits. He also remained an external examiner for the Department until he reached the age of 79.

During all this time Walter continued to study and gained, amongst other things, his Electrician’s Ticket (which came in very useful when I put up my gate lights). His MBL in 1976 with a thesis on the Management of Change and his Ph.D., at the age of 62; also on Management Problems and Solutions. And recently, having retired completely, he enjoyed coaching children from Grade 7 to Matric in Maths and Science. For this he had to “go back to school” himself, the methods of teaching and the curriculum having changed so much over the years.

Walter was also a keen sportsman in his younger days, rowed for his college at Cambridge and was an avid tennis player. He was also a qualified coach and referee for both soccer and rugby – and of course was a keen supporter of the Yorkshire Cricket Club and Leeds United through thick and thin.

It is obvious from what I have said that Walter was one of those people who liked to be challenged and keep his mind occupied. Latterly, one of his major interests was Military History and he gave a number of talks to the Military History Society. He also wrote several articles about his childhood in Yorkshire which were published and he always enjoyed music and poetry.

He will be lovingly remembered by his wife of 58 years, Joan, his son Philip and wife Barbara and daughter Hilary and her husband John and by his three beloved grandsons, Timothy, Christopher and Nicholas. He will also be greatly missed by a host of friends spread around the globe.

Joan has asked me to say a few words about Walter. This is not an easy task for someone who lived such a full and interesting life as he did.

Jackie and I first met Walter some 32 years ago, when, having come down from Zambia, we moved into our new house at Petervale. We found that Joan and he were our neighbours when they welcomed us with a tray of tea and biscuits.

At that time Philip was at University in Cape Town and Hilary was still at Bryanston High. There was also a very friendly spotted dog called William, who was always grinning.

From then our friendship blossomed and Walter helped us in many ways. This relationship was only temporarily dimmed when one of Walter’s bonfires got away from him, as they often did, and burnt Jackie’s boysenberries. Walter and Joan were fantastic neighbours, especially so while I was away in Australia and Fiji for 8 months, when Walter came to the rescue many times. As time wnt on it became clear what an extraordinary person he was.

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The following poem was written for Walter by Ted Giles, his friend of 62 years, with whom he flew in the RAF.

To Walter, a farewell.

Go to your rest, my friend. Our tears will dry.
We shed them in a rage that you should die
In fullness of your love of life: so kind
You were, so skilled, so able: and your mind
Impatient with the world’s half truths, had sought
To understand the best of human thought
And read both holy and unholy word
To separate the wise from the absurd.

For us, though tears will dry, the sadness stays.
We shall, enduring half empty days
Feel, though we mourn, that we are less apart
When sadness joins with love and fills the heart.

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Ted travelled to the church of St Clement Danes, in London, where he left a donation in Walter’s memory with the message:

“This donation is in memory of Flight Lieutenant. Walter Murton, RAF Glider Pilot in the invasion of Normandy in WW2. My comrade at ‘Varsity’ and my lifelong friend ,who is being buried today in South Africa.”