John Anthony Reynolds 24/01/1942 – 23/04/2010 John Anthony Reynolds, known by all just as John or occasionally affectionately by his family as ´Victor´ after the character Victor Meldrew or ´BOF´- Boring Old Fart depending on what his latest grumble was about !, John was a larger than life character who you would thought would only have existed in the pages of a newspaper. On first meeting him many would have thought that he was the original Grumpy old man – but for those that got to know him - and many did get to know the real John. He was a caring and loving husband to Jenny and they were to celebrate 40 years of marriage this year, and he was a loving and caring and affectionate father to David his Son and Helen his Daughter. To all he extended his loving and caring heart and was extremely kind hearted and would go out of his way to help people. John was the only son of John Thomas Reynolds and Hazel May Reynolds, and was born on the 24th of January 1942 in Solihull, Warwickshire, England. He was the eldest of three as he had 2 younger sisters – Sandra and Diane. Due to John´s fathers work, they moved from Solihull to Birmingham and then to Ford houses , Wolverhampton, and he was educated at ´Fordhouses Secondary Modern´. Whilst growing up in Wolverhampton he developed a keen interest in Amateur Radio, as one of his uncles´s was the first licensed radio amateur in Wolverhampton and he also qualified for his own license at the tender age of 16. As well as amateur radio, he was also interested in cycling (and even to this day followed the Tour de France and Tour of Spain avidly each year on TV) and he would spend many a weekend cycling to Wales to go youth hostling, spending much of his time there going walking and he also began to gain his interest in photography around this time. He was also a very active member of the Air Cadet Training corps. After finishing school he secured a place on a 5 year apprenticeship with ´H.M Hobson Ltd´as an Electronics and development engineer. But his education did not finish when he left school for he went on to complete several night school classes. After completing his apprenticeship he went to work for ´Boulton Paul Aircraft Ltd´ of Wolverhampton as a development engineer where he progressed well on the TSR2 project and was head hunted to work for ´British Aircraft Corporation´of Filton, Bristol on several major projects which included Blue Steel, and eventually as chief Avionics engineer on the newly developing ´Concorde´ project, for which he designed, tested and patented numerous systems and early computers that were fitted on board the aircraft. After the ´Concorde´ project had finished his career took a different turn and he moved into Television and radio repair for a short while whilst awaiting a more interesting and challenging position. This came in the form of the newly emerging cellular mobile phone technology and emergency radio response system and he joined ´Co-Channel communications´ where he was responsible for repairing improving and designing various system´s and for the monitoring and repair of both the South Wales Ambulance service and Avon, Somerset and Wiltshire ambulance services radio communication systems. Unfortunately redundancy loomed from this challenging position – but at the same time another new opportunity presented itself in the form of personal computing and the emergence of the Internet. John had always had a interest in computing and had self taught himself most of what he knew on computing and programming and a opportunity presented itself in the form of ´Compuserve´ who went on to become ÁOL´ and he joined them as a member of their call centre staff. His supervisors soon recognized his potential and he rose quickly from the call centre to becoming AOL´s UK senior Connectivity and development engineer which is where he stayed until taking early retirement in 2004. John was married to Jenny in November 1970 and this year was looking forward to celebrating his 40th Wedding anniversary this year, and with Jenny he had 2 children, David their son born in 1973 and Helen their Daughter born in 1975. John had travelled extensively both with work and on holidays and had visited the USA, France, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, The Gambia, Portugal and one very memorable trip with Helen and her school to Russia but he had decided to settle in Spain on taking retirement. John had many interest´s which as well as Amateur Radio included classical music, rock climbing which had taken him to Switzerland to climb the Eiger and given him numerous broken bones when he was younger, computing and as most people in his adopted home of Spain will know his love of Photography and Walking. He could be seen most days before becoming ill taking his beloved dogs (Foxy and Blondie) out for a walk with a camera swinging around his neck and walking off up the mountains surrounding Mula. He had also contributed numerous photo´s that have been used in the´ Costa Calida Chronicle´. John loved his life in his adopted home of Spain and loved the Spanish way of life making a great many friends both local´s who he used to confuse with his attempt at Spanish and the many ex-pats who had moved here. John became ill last year after a routine visit to the doctors for a prescription and the doctor sent him to hospital where they initially diagnosed a lung infection and in the course of treating this they also diagnosed Lung cancer. John had battled the Cancer with various treatment´s and had successfully beaten it being given the all clear earlier this year – but unfortunately it had taken it´s toll on him and had left him very weak and he was re-admitted to hospital 2 week´s ago. He was making a good recovery and had been told that he would be coming home this week and he was looking forward to getting back out on the mountain with his camera and his 2 dogs, but unfortunately that was not to be as his battle was too much for his weakened body and he passed away peacefully with his wife at his side on 23rd April 2010 – St George´s Day. After Years of hearing his familiar G3 PTO call sign from his passion as a radio amateur and in his own words this is: Golf 3 Papa Tango Oscar signing off.