Tribute to Jack Katon Ingram
Jack Ingram, founder of Marine Data, was born in Southampton on September 14th 1933. He was the youngest of the family with four sisters and he grew up in Southampton and went to St Mary’s School. The Second World War shadowed his early youth and the family were bombed out several times.
His mother and all his sisters were nurses and his mother had ambitions of him becoming a doctor but he had other ideas, so when he left school in 1951 he volunteered for the RAF and was trained as a Navigator. Whilst in the forces he was proud to have flown in Lancaster bombers, carrying out reconnaissance around the world. He also went to Bristol university where he studied Radio Physics.
Later, he returned to UK after spending over two years in Germany working with Radar. He went to RAE at Farnborough where he did development work, amongst other things, on the Fluxgate Magnetometer, which is used in navigational equipment for aeroplanes, ships and cars.
On leaving the RAF he worked for many years in the Aircraft Industry, where he became involved in the development of gyroscopic systems. These systems are the basis of modern day navigational aids used in land, sea and air. The final part of this story was to provide the gyroscopes and accelerometers for the Apollo moon landing in 1969. Many of you will be familiar with the quote “The Eagle Has Landed”; Jack saw this as his greatest achievement.
Life for Jack was not all work; he did find time to get married to Pauline in 1954 and have three children, Jeremy and Alice both born in Germany; Tim a little later, in Berkshire.
He had many interests, including playing the Church organ, building and flying model aeroplanes and of course sailing! He learned to sail almost as soon as he could walk and built many of his own boats, which included the design and building of a 30 foot cruising catamaran in the back garden when we lived in Reading! We sailed this around the Solent for many years; this created plenty of fun – especially when we collided with the huge concrete water-intake for Calshot power station in the Solent; how we loved our days out with dad!
Jack was widely read and even when he lost his sight, made use of listening books. He continued working despite his disability, using computer-aided technology; this helped with his work for the fishing authority, contributing towards ocean fishing research, as well as many other projects, including coastal navigation.
We will all remember him as a great motivator at work, home and in his local community, always willing to offer advice and give a hand; an example of this was his endless determination to maintain the roads of the neighbourhood despite being visually impaired. This raised some eyebrows on occasions when he chugged down the road on his Massey Ferguson saying “Where did that horse come from, it wasn’t there yesterday!”
In summary, you all know the quote “Jack of all trades, master of none”. This was not the case of our Jack, for he was highly intelligent, skilled, versatile and had a wealth of experience, which has had a significant impact on today’s technology. He had a tenacity not to be beaten by anything. Most people who knew him were aware that if they had a problem he would fix it, whether it be a highly sophisticated navigational system or a local access road!
And, apart from this, he was a sensitive, loving husband and a very caring father to us all, who was always there when we needed him.
Thank you.
Friday October 5th, 2007
Died, 9th November 2005, Funeral: 17th November 2005 Funeral Directors: William Hall, Tel: +44 (0) 1983 868688
