Introduction

We are sad to have learned of the death of Nick Tovey on April 9 2019. The following tributes are culled from a discussion in the MOGS group https://groups.io/g/mogs.

Tributes

From Donald H
A recent Sandon Parish Magazine includes reference to the funeral of one Nick Tovey on April 9th 2019. His many activities included being Tower Captain at Sandon St Andrew's; in his annual report for 2016 he wrote about various repairs to the bells, some helped by free machining by BAE Systems at Baddow!
Clearly he, his late wife Daphne (who was Headmistress of Beehive Lane Primary School) and the Tovey family were very much part of the local scene. http://www.sandon-church.info/Magazines/Magazine%202010%2005.pdf pages 5 and 6 includes a glowing tribute to Daphne which also casts light on some on Nick's activities; not least to a passion for owning and breeding Saluki dogs.
Nick (N F) Tovey was a Marconi Veteran, joining in 1957.

From Frank S
Although aware of Nick at Radar I knew him best as a fellow member of the Marconi Sailing Club where both his and my family are still active members. I extracted the following from a club newsletter:
Nick, the beloved dad of Fenella Miller and Peter Tovey and grandad to Jenny, Nick, Michael, Bekki and James, was also a very long standing member of MSC who had worked very hard for the club in a number of different roles. He was sailing secretary in 1963 & 1964; Rear Commodore in 1965, 67, 68 & 72; Vice Commodore in 1966 and a Vice President in 1970 & 71, 73 - 1992.

From Barry P
Nick Tovey was a quietly spoken and gentle character, very professional and greatly respected within Marconi and also by MOD ASWE. When I knew him he was responsible for the threat evaluation and weapon assignment TEWA rules in a dedicated Ferranti 1600B computer. The input data came from various detection sources fitted to Type 22 frigates and Batch 3 Leander Class frigates. One of the most important sources was the Marconi-designed 967 surveillance radar which could still reliably detect  potential threats in the presence of close-in heavy land clutter. It proved its value in the Falklands in 1982.

From Alan M
I shared an office in the old wooden C block at Baddow with Nick Tovey for some time and we worked with John Sellers on the design of the height range display system for the 244 heightfinder ("big oily noddy").
Nick designed a relay operated device which took the X,Y positions of targets and then sent them as range and bearing on a time share basis to the heightfinder which would do a nod on each target in turn.
The display operator would then move a strobe on the display, by means of a joystick, to bisect the resulting echo and press a button to get a reading.
I designed what was a mechanical voltmeter which turned the vertical strobe voltage into three positions on rotary switches which would give a reading of height in 10 thousands, thousands and hundreds of feet.
The display timebase was curved to allow for earth curvature giving a linear vertical scale and this was sorted out by John Sellers in the original design.
Nick's unit then delivered the height figures to a mechanical unit for each PPI display operator who had requested the height of a chosen target.
Nick designed the relay logic for these functions and it was very complex and clever.
He was a really kind and gentle man who had some problems with what we now know as dyslexia; so his spelling and English were a bit quaint but as so often happens he made up for this with his brilliance as a logic designer and I think later with software design.
I did not work with him after about 1959 but knew he was very much involved with the sailing club and he always remained a friend who I sometimes saw at the Chelmsford Science and Engineering society lectures.
RIP Nick