End of an era...We say gd by to Tony baskill

I was extremely saddened to hear of Tony’s death, he was only recently made a great grand father.

Hearing this sad news brought back many happy memories of the sport I loved, I spent at least one weekend a month as Paul whittons co driver, Tony’s son in law. Tony as you know was an avid Merc man, using a Merc to tow Wab 11, but also owning and S class which was solely used to transport him and his wife  for their weekly steak meal.

Whilst Tony was a true gentleman, you certainly didn’t want to get on the wrong side of him when it came to money which I found out a few times. Whilst he spent a considerable amount of money on his G, he was always looking for a bargain. I remember when he built the last Wab11, he spent a lot of time getting the best price for the stainless steel to make it.

One off roading weekend with myself driving my little Merc 190, Tony sat beside me with Paul and David Needham in the rear, on our way to dinner, I happened to mention his S class Mercedes.  Tony would buy a new S class every two years, in the early years he would order it, fly to Stuttgart and collect it, then drive it home, this was part of the fun.

I asked Tony, how is it that you would spend hours, even days , hunting for decent prices for the materials he needed to build his trucks, yet buy a new S class every two years and the depreciation lost when you come to sell it was astronomical, it went silent, and Dave Needham was heard saying, Oh shit!

He looked at me, having heard David saying oh shit, I felt I was in for a beating. Let me tell you Ian, when I first met my wife and we were courting, we would go and see a movie on a Saturday night and we had a choice after the movie, we could either share fish and chips or get the bus home, we chose the fish and chips. I never really knew what he was trying to say but I got the feeling of, we had it hard then, and whilst I always remember those days, trying to get the most out of my money is hard to forget, sometimes we just need luxuries.

One other time was when I sent him some mail, I just stuck a 1^st class stamp on it thinking it was ok. Two days later I got a call, Ian I had to get that envelope from the post office, I had to pay 12 p !  you had not  put enough on it, Tony its cost you another 12p to call me and tell me this !..he was not amused ;o)

 Not many people got to know about his life but I had the pleasure one day in the passenger seat of his car when we drove to Ireland for an off road event.

It was a fascinating drive when Tony opened up about his life,after some prompting. An only child who lost his dad when he was very young, I believe in his early teens, he lived with his mum, who if I am not wrong was the first woman publican in the north of England. In this pub top officials from the National coal board would drink, and after a while she persuaded them to take Tony on as a worker, initially he had the task of pulling heavy cables through the mines. Tired of this dirty and heavy work in his spare time would repair TV and radios in and old chicken shed in the pub grounds. This developed into a thriving business, and as time went on opened his own chain of shops.

After working extremely ,hard his family felt he needed to spend more time at home, and in the end sold off the business, but was kept on as a consultant for short time until he and the new owner didn’t quite see eye to eye.

One thing that did stick out in our conversation was when Tony worked for the coal board, he would hand over his pay slips and money to his mum every week, not wanting for much he never needed the money, instead gave it to his mum for support, his extra cash was made in that old chicken shed. When his mother passed and he was clearing out the house, he came across a box, and inside were all the pay slips, and all the money, she never spent a penny of it !