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Articles
RON CARTER
PERSONAL MEMORIES
from Mrs Sheila Carter
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Ron Carter died in 1999, aged 81. His wife, Sheila, recalls that on the day that he died, Ron ‘Nick’ Carter had done his usual 80 press-ups, met customers and friends at his forge in Simonstone (near Burnley) and gave a blacksmith demonstration to a group of people. That evening he had gone. Ron was clearly a remarkable man and here we remember a few memories of this fine person.
On the outbreak of war in 1939, Ron was the first volunteer to be recruited into the Royal Marines, with a regimental number of 0000001. He thought it would be a great way to see the world as he had only been as far as Blackpool before that. As a 22-year-old sports enthusiast, he soon found his niche as a Physical Training Instructor.
Later, he led his platoon in North Africa, and during the invasion of Sicily. During this time, he took his platoon for a small ‘walk’ up Mount Etna and having scrambled to the icy top, they borrowed some corrugated tin sheets from the Italians to do a very scary run downhill through the cloud-mass below! After this, they ‘borrowed’ a motorbike to go over the hills to a German occupied village to buy some nylons. In 1945 he helped to rehabilitate returning POWs.
After the war, Sheila remembers everyone going mad in celebration at Deal with the PTIs doing handstands, etc. on the roof of the PT School and drenching everyone and everything with fire hoses!
In 1960, Ron set up a workshop beside his home in Simonstone, near Burnley, and called it Trapp Forge. This was caused by the closure of the Lancashire cotton mill where he worked. He returned home on his last day at the mill with an anvil – he was the only man strong enough to carry it away!
Ron taught himself by studying the work of French craftsmen employed by Christopher Wren on the building of St Paul’s Cathedral and visiting museums and old ironworks. His wife, Sheila, herself a former student of design at the Royal College of Art, would help by drawing designs for him to craft. As Ron’s reputation grew, he won important commissions for ornate ironwork for churches, cathedrals and country estates, including the gates of the Bolton Parish Church, which contained 36 plants mentioned in the Bible. In 1997, the Queen commissioned him to make a pair of firedogs for Sandringham.
Ron Carter (who was deaf for most of his life, because of the effects of the ship’s guns) was a Fellow of the Worshipful Company of Blacksmiths and won a gold medal, only three of which have been awarded this century. Two of his sons carry on his fine work as blacksmiths at Trapp Forge. Thank you Sheila for some wonderful memories of a very fine member of the Royal Marines P T Branch.
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