Gerry Buck a man and his models

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Gerry Buck

'A man and his models'

Frederick Gerald (Gerry) Buck was born in Hanley, Stoke on Trent on the 18^th August 1916. His father, Fredrick Arthur Buck ran a family Jewellery business in Lamb Street Hanley and lived at the shop premises with his wife Alice whom he had married in the summer of 1915. In 1923 Gerry’s brother Arthur Ronald (Ron) was born.

After education at the junior and High School in Hanley, Gerry was apprenticed to Howell Stanway, a very large electrical engineering company in Hanley. His love of models was already well established, and so it was a short step to joining the newly established North Staffs Model Engineering Society where he was introduced to the delights and possibilities of internal combustion engines. He had previously built a whole succession of model boats so the combination of model boats and small internal combustion engines was too strong to resist and Gerry was still in his teens when he built two racing tethered hydroplanes and engines. The better known of these was ‘Icanopit’, an ‘A’ class boat with a 30cc single cylinder two stroke, while ‘Speck’ was smaller and had a 15cc two stroke motor for the ‘B’ class. He also constructed a steering or straight running boat with a 25cc four-stroke engine named ‘Cheerio’ that was reckoned to be "almost in the racing class".

On June 1^st 1936 Gerry Buck attended his first hydroplane regatta as a competitor, and just two months after its appearance ‘Icanopit’ recorded Gerry’s first ever win. During the course of the year, the Jewellery business moved from its original location in Lamb Street to new premises at Piccadilly in Hanley, where as F.A. Buck Jewellers it flourishes to this day. After many years of living ‘above the shop’ the family moved out to ‘Villa Marie’ at Sneyd Green.

1937 saw Gerry win his first major trophy, with Cheerio taking the Livesey Cup at Fleetwood. Although fully committed with his boats he somehow he found the time and resources to build two model steam locomotives, a 2-½ inch gauge Fayette and a 3-½ inch gauge Princess Marina. Although the North Staffs Society had a track Gerry set to and built his own 250 foot long railway in the garden of his parents house.

Throughout the following season ‘Cheerio and ‘Icanopit’ kept Gerry on the results sheets and at the Grand Regatta the only two-stroke boat to complete the 1000yds Mears trophy event was ‘Icanopit’.

On the outbreak of war in September 1939, Gerry moved to the Rolls Royce ‘shadow factory’ at Crewe inspecting Merlin aero engines. With the MPBA stopping all official regattas, and a complete ban on flying model aircraft, modellers turned to building cars powered by small IC engines. These appealed to Gerry and it was not long before the first of his own cars was under construction.

‘Old Number 1’ as it came to be called was very large car with 6" ‘ash tray’ tyres. A semi scale tinplate body in the style of a racing car with a headrest, steering wheel, ‘aero screen’ and an exhaust pipe all added to the appearance. Paintwork in British racing Green (what else), a large number one and a Union Jack emblem completed the impressive model.

In December 1940 life changed forever for Gerry Buck. The factory at Crewe was in full production seven days a week and Gerry was still at work in the late afternoon of Sunday 29^th December when a lone Junkers 88 headed towards the factory. Flying low, the Junkers dropped two large bombs at 3.09 pm. The first went through the roof of number 2 machine shop killing 5 women and twelve men. The blast blew machinery and shrapnel in all directions and in shop number 16 nearby Gerry was hit and crushed by flying debris. The second landed in a yard doing considerable material damage, but with no further loss of life.

A grim memento of the raid. A piece of the bomb casing.

Having been rescued and taken to hospital it was discovered that Gerry had severe injuries to one arm and even worse injuries to one leg and foot. Once the damage was repaired he was transferred to Winnick hospital at Warrington for a very long period of convalescence. While his mobility was severely restricted, his desire to be doing things was undiminished and it was not long before he had persuaded his father to bring in hand tools from home and a vice that was bolted to his bedside cabinet, so he could continue work on his car.

When he finally left the hospital Gerry had recovered the use of his limbs but the injuries to his foot were to continue to trouble him. He was unable to return to work in the industrial environment and in 1942 he went to work for the family jewellery business. The change in circumstances gave him more time to devote to the models and his first job was to repair ‘Number One’ damaged late in 1941, while he demonstrated the car to members of the North Staffs Society.

In 1942, with the flying of model aeroplanes prohibited, the editor of Aeromodeller Douglas Russell was looking for other avenues to fill the editorial space and so he proposed and sponsored the Aeromodeller Trophy for tethered cars. ‘Number One’ at close on 12lbs was far too heavy, ponderous and slow so a completely new car was designed. With unarguable logic this car was called ‘Number 2’ and was based on a channel section aluminium chassis and a 7.5cc Bunch Gwin Aero engine. Conscious of the need for the car to be as light as possible he set about the chassis with a vengeance and ‘drilled holes in everything’ with the result that the complete car weighed in at just 4 lbs. A distinctive and realistic tinplate body covered the works with the cockpit fully upholstered and a string bound steering wheel protruding from the dashboard. A dummy exhaust ran down the left hand side of the car to complete the look of a real car.

Buck car number 2, christened ‘Dizzy Lizzie’ initially managed just over 30mph, so the first of a series of alterations were made that produced an official timed run of 40.5 mph. In April 1943 the results were announced and Gerry Buck had won class ‘A’ and the ten guinea first prize. Development on Number 2 did not stop there and soon ‘Dizzy Lizzie’ was running at 55-56 mph.

Having passed the 40 and 50 mph mark in just a few months Gerry travelled down to London to compete against other pioneering racers in the first proper race meeting. The preparation, reliability and speed of his car proved beyond the reach of the others and Number 2 ran out the winner by a clear margin. The next outing was to be a salutary experience for Gerry as ‘Dizzy Lizzie No 2’ was totally destroyed when the flax tethering line broke and the car hit "A massive steel cabinet"

The car was comprehensively wrecked but Gerry set about salvaging what he could. Only the cylinder from the engine was undamaged but bit-by-bit he remachined and rebuilt each part. Gerry reasoned that there was nothing wrong with the design or performance of the car, so he would build an identical chassis and body. This decision led to the creation of the best known and most easily recognised tethered car ever, the ‘Buck 2A’.

At an informal meeting that year, run on 14ft lines, 2A averaged 67mph for the ¼ mile for a new, but unofficial, British record. During the winter of 1943 he also gave considerable thought as to what a successor to 2A might look like, sketching out ideas for a new engine as a basis for ‘Dizzie Lizzie’ No 3.

During 1944 Gerry came up with an ingenious timing device that would fit into his jacket pocket, yet time a car accurately to1/100^th of a second over any number of laps. In the first of what were to become regular contributions to Model Engineer, and the specialist Model Car magazines, he gave a detailed description of the design and manufacture of the timing gear.

For information on the Mathews V car in the heading photo see 'Pitbox' item.