Douglas Martin Ellis BSc CEng MIET, October 1960 – May 2023
Obituary provided by his brother, Michael Ellis BEng (Hons) CEng MIET
Doug was born in Wallsend, Tyne and Wear, to a poor family as the middle child of seven children. As he became a teenager, he took a real interest in all things electronic. All pocket money and birthday money was used to purchase Practical Electronics magazines and various hobby components. He learned to solder and built amongst many things: a synthesiser, various guitar pedals and a radio telescope in the back garden all before he was 15.
Not being able to stay on at school due to financial reasons, Doug got an apprenticeship with C. A. Parsons & Co. as a Technical Apprentice aged 16. During these four years, Doug also did night school and did his Highter National Certificate and Higher National Diploma. Supervisors spotted Doug’s talent and suggested that he would be better off doing a degree. The opportunity to get redundancy came around and Doug took it after completing his apprenticeship.
He joined the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) in 1980 on the Electrical and Electronic Engineering course, graduating in 1983. The early 80s were tough times and it took Doug around six months to get a job. This was in Edinburgh for on the Ferranti radar where he worked in the test and trials department. He worked for Ferranti for seven years and spent time living in Portsmouth and Bedford, as well as Edinburgh. He enjoyed the job, flying around in helicopters testing radar and he particularly enjoyed life in Edinburgh.
Doug returned home to Newcastle in 1989 to join Vickers Defence Systems to work on Challenger 2. He quickly became a key member of the team and worked on many projects including sight repair facility, Titan and Trojan vehicles and Warrior turret replacement. With Doug’s ability in systems integration and his understanding of military specifications, he made a huge contribution to the success of the vehicles. With work, he travelled many times to both Canada and France but was apparently proud of the fact that he avoided ever going to Bovington, Dorset (the UK main tank training area).
Doug retired at 56 and took to his main hobbies: designing electronic games (always programming in Assembly) and recording his own original music as he played both guitar and drums. He was also obsessed with running and could still manage quite a few six minute miles aged 60. He spent a lot of his days in the gym. Doug loved holidays and had many per year. He always managed at least two holidays a year to the Lake District where he would always meticulously plan all of the hills which we were to do. He absolutely loved the outdoors. Nothing better than a six hour walk in all weather, then some nice hearty food and some ale in a good pub.
But in 2018, he decided that maybe he had left work too early and became a consultant with his own business. He went back to Vickers (now renamed RBSL) and worked for a year on the Challenger 3 project. After that contract Doug was head-hunted to solve a problem with the Ajax vehicle for General Dynamics in South Wales. Doug loved being a consultant as the money was good and more importantly he didn’t have to be involved in the office politics nor the training courses. Pure design work was all that he ever wanted to do. This contract lasted two years and he finally retired in early 2021.
Near the end of 2021, Doug had a number of random falls where he badly bruised his head and face. Shortly after, his speech became slightly slurred. We thought that maybe he had had a minor stroke or TIA. But, after many months of tests, Doug was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in September 2022.
His deterioration was extremely fast as he had the worst possible version of MND which affected all of his body. He lived independently for as long as he could, but after a bad fall at his home, Doug spent his last two months in the hospital system and died on 19 May 2023 with some of his brothers and sisters at his side.
Even after his MND diagnosis, Doug was still beavering away with his electronic games. He was trying to get a patent and was involved in discussions with companies to try to commercialise them.
Doug is sadly missed by all his family and friends. MND is such a cruel disease where there is no hope and it is utterly devastating to watch a relatively young, very healthy and athletic person die so quickly from it.