John Cook - RIP

[RogerH]

Hi Folks,

it was mentioned on FB this morning that John Cook, from way up in the North East, has passed away.

I met him a number of times on our Scottish tours and he was a nice man to be around.

He had a very good knowledge of our cars

 

RIP John

 

Roger

Edited October 18, 2022 by RogerH

[terry smith]

Sorry to hear this.  Did a lot for the register in the early days   

 

[saffrontr]

So sorry to hear this, my heart goes out to his wife Ev who was always as John's side at all of the TR Weekends and at the Northumbria Group meetings when I first joined the TR Register way back in the day. 

RIP John

Derek

 

[cp25616]

Agreed Derek, John was a TR stalwart and a thoroughly nice man. He gave me my first and only run in a TR2 way back in 1981, I have not recovered since!

Heartfelt commiserations go out to Ev, who was always by his side.

RIP John

Alan G

Edited October 18, 2022 by cp25616

[RosyP]

Such sad news about John. Lots of lovely memories though - joining Ev as his pit crew at Silverstone, where we hung out a calendar over the wall instead of a regular time board (he was in a very, very standard TR2); swapping parts between his TR2 and Paul Good's TR so he could continue to race, and then swapping them back so we could drive home - John had a trailer for his car, which he reckoned was worth 2 seconds a lap; joining them 'up north' for sprints with the Chiltern gang. He will be missed.

[dblenk]

i dont do facebook so i hope my condolences can be seen here always a good chat with him over the years

RIP John

[Paul Hogan]

Just a quick update for those who knew John, his funeral takes place today, Wednesday 2nd November.  I haven't been able to speak to Ev yet but I will pass on all your condolences to her when I do. 

Just as aside, it's worth noting that John and Ev were key members of the TR management committee when the office was based in Berkhamsted.  They rarely if ever missed a ctte meeting despite having to drive all the way down from Blackhall Mill in Northumberland. a distance of some 270 miles and about 5 hours travelling time each way.   If that's not dedication I don't know what is.  Trouble is, in this age of facebook and email that's all forgotten now.  If it were not for people like John and Ev the club would never have prospered although I'm not so sure sure John would approve of the way things have turned out with the club with it becoming more business focused.   In its early days the TR Register was full of enthusiastic members who would volunteer and do things for the club because they wanted to.  As a club, we seem to have lost that feeling of joining in for the greater good to be replaced with a 'what's in it for me' attitude.  

I'll stand corrected but I dont think John ever missed an International until his illness became so bad that he could no longer drive or attend and IWE.  What he would make of all the talk going on now about the IWE  I can only imagine.  

Hogie 

[Dic Doretti]

          I remember the Cookies regularly came up to Scotland in the 1980s and did a tremendous amount for the TR Register at the time. They were a force of nature but I guess none of us is getting any younger. I went to Robbie Coltrane's funeral on Monday and I thought he would live forever.

         Cheers

         Richard

[Chris Glasbey]

Fond memories of John & Ev from those earlier days of the TR Register .....including Lakes Tours and committee.

Yes , life was different then ...and we were younger.

RIP John.

Chris

[SuzanneH]

The last time we saw John and Ev was at what was to be the last Lakes Tour. There was only a handful ( 7 )of us and we spent the evening in a tiny pub in Cartmel. 
I hope Ev will be OK without John, as she seemed somewhat confused that evening. 
I remember them always being at every Lakes Tour, times certainly are different.

[Paul Hogan]

Yes John and Ev were regular features on the Lakes tours. My enduring memory of Ev was on one VERY wet Lakes weekend when they arrived in their TR2 without the hood on to exclaim "Eeh, I'm wet right through to me knickers!"   A great couple.   We'll not see their like again. 

hogie. 

[Cooks]

Hello Ev here, yes I at times read the forum (I’m still a TR Register member) though not posted anything in a long while but my ears are burning so I thought I’d join in. Bit of a ramble but indulge me. I know there’s a thread on Facebook too but I don’t do that.

Has to be said John would have hated to be talked about on Social Media as didn’t see the point but here goes.

Thanks Hogie, I recall many happy Lakes tours, we were actually at the very first one and yes soggy through to me undies on more than one occasion. Well it rains a great deal up north. As for being confused at what was one of the last Lakes Tours, it was probably the result of one too many glasses of Bluebird. Cheers. I can still manage to tie me own shoelaces though I can’t say me cardi buttons always are in the appropriate opposite hole. We won’t mention the dribbling.

Thank you for the kind condolences, and the memories, been a grim few years and a harrowing few months. I miss John hugely, we were together 53 years and owned TRs since 1970. For those who have said they would have attended his funeral had they known, in reality he was quietly cremated (in a BRG TR Register 50th Anniversary T Shirt) without a service and his ashes will be placed in a local woodland burial site. It is hoped that a local group meeting can be held in the spring in John’s memory where a small whip round will take place for a donation to charity in his name.

I still have the Motorsport mags with the correspondence about forming a TR Register, and can recall as if it was yesterday the discussion. we had about it. John never missed reading Motorsport, he once got a mention when we competed in the RAC Golden 50 Rally, did quite well really and the late Paddy Hopkirk helped with a quick bit of running repair of the 2. In fact he said he’d have preferred to compete in the 2 rather than the works Mini in which he won. John’s mention was about him overshooting the mark at Blenheim Place bridge, on one of the driving tests, drum brakes being what they are, and he was not allowed to forget it. I wrote it up in TR Action for those interested in digging out the article.

And there’s a wee clip of us at the end of this report. Happy days.

https://youtu.be/Qa7w0xlL0Rg

John and I did indeed serve on the national committee, driving many thousands of miles in the cause of furthering the aims of the Register, as well as jointly being group leaders of the local group for a time. John was a recipient of a TR Register Gold Award (as am I) though I have to say we weren’t always treated too kindly by some in the Register hierarchy and the award came late in the day. (Insert wry emoticon here.)

I see in my latest TR Action there’s a cobbled together and enthusiastic if a tad inaccurate in places ‘tribute’ to John with his and my surname with an added e. For the record and posterity it’s Cook not Cooke.  The TR3A in the pic, bought with student grants (yes that’s me in the passenger seat, a production car trial and I think we won an award, how scarily young we were) was the car in which I learned to drive. It also was daily transport, I recall in winter the frozen seats, soggy horsehair (the roof leaked) thawing out on the journey to work. Ouch.

John began circuit racing early 1980s at a Eight Clubs meeting, Silverstone, as with all else he did he decided to ‘have a go’ and went and did it in my 2, our only roadworthy car used for daily transport and driven to and from circuits until we could afford a van and trailer. The hub incident mentioned by Colin (again for the record) I suspect was actually Brands Hatch, where John was overtaken by his wheel on the Grand Prix circuit at a HSCC International Historic Weekend. The mad dash in the night to get another hub from a TR wreck buried in nettles and repair the car for the next day’s racing I wrote about in TR Action (1985 or 1986?) and resulted in John being awarded the Man of the Meeting Award. The 2 featured twice on the cover of TR Action, once after the Golden 50 and another a shot of John racing.

In later years we ran a drophead 7 with an inserted Sprint engine for a while, which was also fun. He took that to Classic Le Mans with fingers crossed as the engine and several other things had only just been put back together the week before! It’s a very long drive from the north.

John learned to drive when he was 14 when a group of friends all chipped in and for a fiver bought an old ‘banger’ and drove it round and round a local field. He went on to motorbikes at 16, then had six car driving lessons as soon as he could legally drive on the road and passed his test first time. He was never happier than when he was behind a driving wheel, or messing about doing something practical. He was a clever man who hid his light rather. 

John could fix anything really, and so much knowledge of TRs, history, care and repair and TR Register lore and legend has gone with him.

A thoroughly decent bloke, who for many years rarely missed a local group meeting, a Lakes tour or an international and I have his collection of T shirts to prove it.

We made so many friends via the Register (you know who you are...) and yes good memories of lovely people, tales to tell, fun times especially the motorsport years, as Rosy says, and TRs are great cars. They don't make 'em like that any more.

xxx

Edited November 19, 2022 by Cooks