We are sad to report that during July Standard lost a couple of colleagues.  Both Service Engineer Nish Tailor and Head Engineer Mick Payne succumbed after long illnesses at far too young an age.  In a small, close-knit company like ours, this double blow has left us all floored, even though both men had been desperately unwell for some time.

Nish had joined Standard as a factory electrician in 1986 when we were operating out of Evington Valley Road in Leicester, moving up to the role of Service Engineer.  He carried this role into the newly amalgamated Standard Engineering / Whitfield Wylie at the turn of the Century and continued to be our main Power / Lynx engineer.  He was also our main Disintegrator technician, both building new systems and servicing existing ones.

Mick Payne had joined Whitfield Wylie even earlier – during the Silver Jubilee year of 1977.  He soon became the Head Engineer as well as the “Go to” man for all things Whitfield.  This became even more important after the Standard takeover, when the newly formed company continued to build the Whitfield rage of equipment and lent heavily on Mick’s vast knowledge and gruff but endearing manner (!)

A lot of readers will have met Nish over the years as he visited shops up and down the country.  Far less would have met Mick, but, if they have used a finisher built in this country in the past 30-odd years the chances are you have used something Mick would have had a direct hand in building.

Nish and Mick were two of the good guys.  We’ll miss them both.