M.C. (Mick) Bell. 1953-2007.

It is with great sadness that we must inform everyone of the passing of Mick Bell. After a brave and courageous 8 year battle against cancer his body finally gave up the struggle on Wednesday 8th August at the tragically young age of 54.

Despite serving for 20 years in the RAF, no one’s perfect I suppose, Mick’s overriding interest was in military vehicles and his extraordinary skills and talents as a model maker and draughtsman put him at the very top of the hobby. Although a modest man, he was quite simply one of the hobby’s “greats”. He was an extremely generous person who always offered help to anyone asking and was quite literally inspirational to many modellers through both his plans, which have been published widely, and the superb models he built and displayed. He was a very talented draughtsman who drew plans of vehicles covering many countries and periods. When he started using Autocad on his computer his plans became probably some of the best of their type in the world.

After many years scratch building models, many of which won prizes in the MAFVA Nationals, Mick turned his hand to making master patterns for several well known manufacturers including Cromwell Models, BW Models, CSMC and Geisbers Models. Mick may be gone, but his skill and craftsmanship will live on in the models from these manufacturers as well as his plans.

Mick was a loyal and staunch supporter of MAFVA and his membership number of 343, dating back to around 1968 reflects this. He has contributed over 100 scale drawings to the magazine, with many others still to be published, as well as several articles.

Those who knew him personally will always remember his ready smile, sense of humour and the Australian drover’s hat he always wore. He hardly had a bad word to say about anyone and if he did it was always with a sense of humour. It was a great privilege to have known him and counted him as a friend. He will be sorely missed, but he rests peacefully at last. Our condolences and thoughts go out to his wife Coryn and children Tomos and Alex, both of whom he was extremely proud.

Rest in Peace.

Barry Wright & Paul Gandy