Notable personalities         

by A Hughes

Ian William Moore was born in Staffordshire on May 14th 1920. He was known to one and all as Bill and only seemed to use Ian for official purposes. He married the delightfully named Ivy Ironmonger in 1944 and they initially lived in a flat in the centre of Derby, which meant no workshop facilities at all. This was not a problem at the time as Bill was an enthusiastic aero modeller, but as his attention turned increasingly to cars, the lack of a workshop hindered him tremendously. There is regular reference to him ‘borrowing’ workshop time or having to call on fellow club members to carry out machining operations for his car components. Although employed by Rolls Royce, he joined an evening class at the Derby Technical College to give himself some additional workshop time. Later, the couple moved to Spondon, on the outskirts of Derby.

Together, Bill and Ivy raced their stable of cars throughout Britain and Europe winning numerous trophies on the way until they called it a day at the end of the 54 season. In common with many others in the immediate post war period they had no car and so most of their travelling was by public transport, even the trips to Italy, which was an amazing undertaking at the time.

On the organisational front, Bill started by representing the aero modelling interests on the committee of the newly formed Derby Club. In 1948 he became the secretary, but pressure of work created by a change in job at RR forced him to relinquish that post after a couple of years.

He was active in the formation of the Model Car Association being largely responsible for its detailed and carefully thought out constitution. Initially he acted as the records officer, which was poetic in a way, with Ivy and him collecting so many of them. At the AGM of the MCA in 1952 he became secretary and treasurer of the association. He held this post for a number of years, culminating in being appointed the contest director for the 1954 European Championships, held at the Luton track.

Having become a Dooling convert he, in concert with Cyril Catchpole, formed the Dooling Enthusiasts Club, which existed as a loose association to foster interest in these motors and for sharing information.

During The time he was active in the sport, Bill built 13 identifiable tether cars. Six of these were described in detail in constructional articles published in magazines with full sized plans available for those planning to build a ‘Moore’ car.

As well as continuing his output of articles for the specialist magazines, 1954 saw him taking on the role of editing the car content of Model Maker. This heralded the end of the involvement of Bill and Ivy Moore in competitive tethered car racing.

Their marriage remained childless and they were to divorce in the mid 60s, although, by a strange turn of events, they did end up living as near neighbours in Devon where Ivy continued to do Bill’s laundry, even though she had remarried.

Bill died in 1994, with Ivy outliving him by nearly 10 years, dying in 2003.

An illustrated booklet detailing all the cars designed and built by Ian Moore is available by contacting admin@onthewire.co.uk

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©copyrightAHughes 2005