I’m sure that many of you had the same good fortune as I to have dealt with Andrew Waugh - While my activity has not been steady here as I got pulled away on other projects, I always seem to find his sage advice very accurate and useful on a variety of E-type related projects.
There is a lot of great knowledge here without which restoring an E-type would be vastly more of a challenge. Andrew was certainly one of those voices.
So - I’m a bit late on this but wanted to acknowledge his contributions here, and thankfully they will live on in the archives.
For a few days three months before his passing Andrew was our guest here in Niagara. A finer gentleman I have yet to meet. Several local J-Lers took advantage of Andrew’s Canada visit for a bbq meet-and-greet and very pleasant evening of gearhead conversation.
Don’t feel too badly, Paul, I didn’t invite you … you are, after all, 1400 miles away … I do regret not being aware of a few other local J-Lers whom I would have invited.
Yes it was. A great visit. You don’t get to know someone in a few days, even when it’s full time. But it was an amazing few days regardless. Nonstop, engaging conversation. Right up there with the best.
I was not fortunate enough to have ever met Andrew, but I knew that he was a collector and expert repairer of antique watches and clocks, and that he lived in Switzerland. Therefore I was surprised when he sent the Smiths clock from his Jaguar all the way to the US for me for repair. I asked him why a Swiss watchmaker, who knew much more than I did about repairing clocks, would send his clock to me. He responded by telling me that he felt that I knew more about that particular type of clock than he did. High praise indeed.
I called upon his expertise later when I was repairing a 400-day clock. There’s a lot of potential energy stored in the mainspring of a clock that only needs to be wound once a year, and I needed to remove the spring from its can so I could clean and lubricate it. Andrew sent me detailed safety precautions and pictures describing what I needed to do. After I safely cleaned it and returned it to its can I wrote back to him. He responded by saying, “Since you are writing to me on a keyboard I assume you still have all of your fingers!”
He also helped me with my uncle’s WW2 Navy-issued Longines chronometer. That was a very cool watch, with a 24 hour dial and another little dial that indicates how many hours before it needs winding, and a bi-metallic balance wheel that changes size to compensate for changes in temperature. I didn’t want to mess it up. Andrew wrote long emails to me describing exactly what I needed to do in order to safely take it apart. He was very patient and answered all my questions. I was still corresponding with him when I learned that he had suddenly passed away. I was so devastated at the time that I couldn’t trust myself to write anything to the Jag-Lovers group. Even though I had never met him I considered him a good friend. I’m thankful that I now have the opportunity to add my memories to this tribute to a great man.
We get to know one another mostly through conversation. It could be your intimate take on the man exceeds mine through your greater interchanges in writing. And I understand your regret never having had the opportunity to meet him in life. Such is part of the internet phenomenon.
I do regret not being aware of a few other local J-Lers whom I would have invited.