PASSING ON: Mike Savage and Ted Wilkinson

MIKE SAVAGE

The demise (and it is a term he would have liked) of Mike Savage FRAeS, on 7 May, sees the loss of a public relations supremo who knew everyone and networked at a pace.  He was a member of the Aviation Club since its inception in 1990.
 
Mike served an engineering apprenticeship at de Havilland Aircraft Company, Hatfield, was an RAF pilot (Vampires) 1953-58, and then joined Handley Page in a PR role with the Herald, Jetstream and Victor bomber as the main output.

He acted in a similar role as PR Manager with what became British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) 1964-70, helping to sell the BAC One-Eleven.  He was involved with Concorde and press trips on the aircraft.  A short spell at British Hovercraft Corp followed (1970-72), returning to BAC working in the Gulf area through the seventies, then a spell with Burston Marsteller.  He was with Saab (civil and military) with the title VP Advertising 1984-98. Based out of Saab’s Windsor office in Sheet Street he worked closely with Moritz Suter and the Crossair PR team as Europe’s leading regional airline introduced the Saab 340 and Saab Concordino. Mike’s press trips to Linkoping were, quite simply, legendary.

Mike was fun, part of a team which broke the long-distance record for driving a lawnmower from Edinburgh to London with a haggis in the grass box; digging the wrong swimming pool for Sudan Airways; creating a fictitious airline to get tea and biscuits; the curious case of the pilotless banana freight DC-4 from South America to Miami; the incident of the exploding cigar at the Farnborough Air Show; the lost BAC promotional radio tape in New Zealand; and how the entire crew of a Saab delegation to the Australian Air Show were arrested for two days by military police in Indonesia for filing the wrong flight plan.  

Latterly, as an independent PR consultant, his clients included CFM, Messier-Dowty and CTT Systems (Sweden), whose invitations to an annual basement dinner at Le Beaujolais, Lichfield Street, London, were much sought after.  

The ever-jovial Mike believed in socialising and had little time for modern PR people who sit at home behind a desk neither knowing the product or the contacts.

Aged 86, he leaves a widow of 38 years, Cathryn, sons Simon and Nicholas, returning from Australia, and John, living locally. Plus six grandchildren.

A private cremation will take place shortly and the family, together with the Aviation Club, is planning a celebration of Mike’s life in the summer.  It will be a Wake.

www.aerosociety.com/news/audio-an-interview-with-mike-savage-on-selling-with-handley-page-bac


TED WILKINSON

Edward (Ted) Wilkinson, an old-school car tester (and a long-time member of the Guild of Motoring Journalists), died after a short illness on Thursday 4 May following six brave years as a double leg amputee.  He was 84, born on 19 February 1939 in Enfield.

Whilst wheelchair-bound he dogmatically soldiered on often reminiscing from past automotive sport times of the largely forgotten sixties and seventies.

He planned to write a review of his VW Caddy, diesel Brotherwood conversion, but sadly never got around to it.  

Ted was introduced to the world of newspapers and magazines as a 16-year-old apprentice on the old News Chronicle and moved to magazines (Hotel and Caterer and Meat Marketing) when the Chronicle folded.  As was the norm in those times he was immediately called up for National Service which he completed in Germany.

In 1961 he joined Teesdale, publishers of Motor Sport and Motoring News, as Advertising Manager.  The team at the time included the legendary Bill Boddy and Dennis Jenkinson, navigator to Stirling Moss for his epic 1955 Mille Miglia win and a superb journalist.  

The two publications can only be described as a fountain of all knowledge of Formula One in the late sixties and early seventies, the time of the Lotus 49/72.  Ted was part of that team. In a later motoring life how many road cars he tested over the only his wife Billie can guess but must be well over 500.

Living in Cheshunt he was often down at the then Lotus factory seeking scoops which he passed on.  Lotus was prone to start up their racing cars in Delamere Road, which did not go down that well with their neighbour Tesco, whose HQ was next door, but OK with the police, about to own Mark 1 Lotus Cortinas, assembled on the site.

Ted married Billie (Helen Seaman) in 1970.  There were no children.

Former Formula One writer Andrew Marriott recalls the wedding where himself and Mike Doodson, a fellow Motoring News hack, were ushers and disgraced themselves by arriving after the bride from their flat in Hampstead, via some engine parts to pick up.

Soon after TNU Editor-in-Chief Malcolm Ginsberg, then Lotus PR, was with fiancée Linda as a dinner guest at the Wilkinson’s home.  Linda of course offered to help with the washing up and was then shown a dishwasher, something new in those days.  It went to the top of the wedding ’wish list’.

Ted became a Director of the Enfield Advertiser, one of the first start-ups as a free weekly newspaper where his role was ad manager.  

As a motoring journalist he expanded a syndicated column mainly for Central Press, at its peak 30 outlets.  Press cars abounded and sometimes there were three outside their Broxbourne home.  His lovely Triumph Stag hardly made any mileage over 20 years, and in the end he sold it.  He was the Business Travel News motoring contributor for many years.  New car launches were a special treat in some exotic locations, including a south of France Peugeot convertible launch with BTN’s Malcolm Ginsberg.  The car was so good MG purchased one.  

The Advertiser Group expanded and was taken over several times until Ted retired, giving him more time for other interests including Round Table, 41Club, Rotary and Probus.  Ted & Billie inherited a villa in Els Poblets, near Denia, on the coast and about 50 miles north of Alicante.  They visited regularly, even in his disabled state, up to about four years ago.  

Funeral 14:00 Thursday 1 June
Woollensbrook Crematorium, Hoddesdon, Herts EN11 9BS

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READERS' COMMENT

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Alison Chambers, Woking, Surrey

Mike Savage was a legend. The ultimate PR supremo. His story telling from his experiences all around the world (including India where a passenger tried to put her baby in the overhead locker) were hilarious. Listen to his regular RAES aviation podcasts and that voice is - remarkable. We worked together when Emerald was handling PR for Crossair in the UK. The memorable presentation of the Saab 2000 for the King and Queen of Sweden in 1991 was an exceptional, glitzy occasion. We were all in our finery but Mike did not want the party to end and we were all back with him at the hotel, celebrating into the early hours. He was a brilliant writer and produced colourful copy insisting on a manual typewriter - he pressed the keys so hard it would go through the paper. A true gentleman, twinkly eyes, red wine in hand at parties and The Aviation Club lunches he was a friend and mentor to many.

Malcolm Ginsberg, London

We will all miss Mike for his charm and wit. And knowledge of the industry. The Saab 340 is about disappear from the British scene, rather sadly like Mike.