Dr Douglas White 

Doug was an only child, born in Barrow in Furness to Susannah and Gerry White. From an early age he would be involved with his father on some project or other in the workshop.

Initially his parents pushed him at school, and he wanted to get to university, away from home to study Mechanical Engineering. By the time he was doing A Levels, they were worried he was working too hard but he was a year ahead of his peers! He needed to get a scholarship to be able to go to university, and managed to secure a prestigious one with Bristol Siddeley, later to merge with Rolls Royce.

He delighted in telling people he was expelled from school! He couldn’t start his degree course until he was 18 and school wanted him to re-sit his final year and exams, but he refused, hence he was expelled! He swore he’d never take another exam! And so he had a year with Bristol Siddeley cementing the apprenticeship basics before he started studying.

Three years at Kings College, London passed, and it was back to Rolls Royce as it was then. He was supposed to rotate through several different departments, but working on aero engine vibrations, they recognised his forte and they kept him! He was seconded as a technical assistant to the directors, travelling with them by private jet up and down the country. On one of these trips, Sir Stanley Hooker asked him how he saw his career going, what did he want to do next? Doug said he thought he should get chartered… ‘Hmm’, was the response – the IMechE wasn’t very active or well thought of at that time (and it required an exam) – ‘Why don’t you go for a PhD instead? – I’ll see what I can do’. And so Doug found himself at Churchill College, Cambridge for three years, studying squeeze film bearings. He would claim it was a three-year holiday, but he was working hard and playing hard. He took up a sport for the first – and only time, I believe – and he rowed for his College on the river Cam where he met Canon Noel Duckworth, for whom he had the greatest respect.

It was during that time that he married Lesley, his second cousin. He always said his mother had shown him a photograph and said, ‘You should marry someone like this’. But it was no arranged marriage, they were very happy together until her untimely death aged 56.

Rolls Royce aeroengines had hit hard times, so he didn’t return to them after the PhD, but joined Dames and Moore, and travelled studying the effects of earthquakes on buildings: a fascinating time and whenever there were photos of the collapsed buildings on TV, he would say, ‘Look! Where’s all the reinforcement; people have been cutting corners to save money!’

Travelling and working in the States for months at a time wasn’t good for family life, as first Blair and then Craig were born. Both the boys were given tools at an early age, ‘It’s sharp, be careful, and if you cut yourself, it’s your own fault!’ He loved his boys and regretted being away working so much when they were growing up.

For 50 years his great love was ‘playing trains’ – reading about them, buying models or building his own, or designing extensive complex layouts and their scenery. Occasionally they actually ran on track! At first he would work on the tiny N gauge models in hotel rooms when away for work, but later he moved on to 0 gauge, and eventually G or Garden gauge. The house and garage are full of models, many in various stages of disassembly and track in various stages of functionality!

Doug and Lesley settled in Fleet, in Hampshire, he was working at the National Gas Turbine Establishment, Farnborough. He didn’t particularly enjoy the work, but it was a steady, reliable job for a family man. Eventually frustration got the better of him and he, along with colleagues set up a consultancy, Principia Mechanica for 8 years; before going alone in 1987.

I joined him in 1990 as Girl Friday. It was great to watch his relationship with clients, sometimes it was a little too close to friendship, so he was never good at pricing work! Some jobs were purely theoretical and some were practical. The company was never large, but it had a reputation for thinking outside of the box and coming up with innovative solutions. That was Doug’s forte. One of our designs for a chlorinator led to the average time between failures going from 14 hours to 18 months! We worked on safety assessment of nuclear plant, design of wind turbines blade test rigs and endless process plant.

Doug could look at a piece of machinery and know how it worked – or why it didn’t! He had an inherent understanding of machinery – built upon those hours with his father in their workshop.

After Lesley’s death at the age of just 56, he started volunteering as a Samaritan; there is no one I would rather talk with at a difficult time! He continued for 10 years, doing a day’s work then setting off for a 4-hour overnight shift, and would then snatch some sleep before work again.

After Doug was widowed, and after many years of platonic friendship, our relationship blossomed, and in 2008 we were married.

Although he was guided away from chartership in the sixties, it became apparent that as a consultant, it was required recognition of his skills. The dreaded exam was no longer required, but it still took several years to get round to applying. But eventually he got his application in, and he was called for interview. He thoroughly enjoyed chatting with the interviewers, who declared he’d had the career to dream of!

When we came to Bucknell on our retirement he continued with the expert witness work. Even as he sat in his coat, before setting off to the hospital for major surgery in February this year, he was on a Zoom call, for the closure of a 2-year-long job. He always said he wanted to be working on his deathbed, and he almost managed it!

In amongst work in retirement, we still managed to fit in holidays to Canada, Spain, and even Japan! He loved Bucknell! We still look up the valley coming past the Jolly Frog and say, ‘Isn’t that beautiful, and we live here!’ It was like an extended holiday! And yet he still found projects here, 2 years of the Bucknell Calendar photo competition, quarterly Big Breakfasts, refreshments for the Ride and Striders, and he took on other projects that people were putting down, the Book Club and the Lottery.

Sometimes he felt that his later career wasn’t what it might have been, but then we looked back over the employees he took on as young graduates. He showed them the real world and how to make a career. Our list of ex-employees is sprinkled with those who became Managing Directors, Chief Engineers, Consultants, Directors of large companies and small. He put people on the right path and helped them make the best of themselves, he didn’t like to give up on anyone, even when they didn’t know which end of the screwdriver to hold!

So what have people said of him?

A strong, quiet and gentle man
A kind and steady presence in their life
Supportive of his loved ones!
Kind, generous, and full of life
Thoughtful, considerate, loyal
An excellent Expert Witness, and excellent engineer
Life was better for having him in it, Bucknell will be poorer without him

He has been my best friend for thirty-odd years, and my husband for 16. We didn’t make his promised 25^th wedding anniversary, but I shall continue to celebrate him each and every day.

Jenny White