Philip Heaton, 25 February 1926 – 15 February 2021
Published: Wed 24 Mar 2021
Philip Heaton, an electronics expert, was born on 25 February 1926.
He died of heart failure on 15 February 2021, aged 94.
Philip Heaton was an engineer to the last day of his life.
In early February 2021, he was changing washers on taps.
In retirement, he enjoyed repairing electrical equipment and could be relied upon to get watches, radios, or televisions to work again.
In the 1950s when he was the manager of Cable and Wireless in Cocos Keeling Islands, he went to South Island by boat to meet John Clunies-Ross, the Magistrate and effective ruler.
Philip dressed carefully for the meeting with a tie but was met by a man in nothing but trousers and a knife in his belt!
In the mid-1960s, on a family outing, his car’s oil sump was damaged in Tsavo game park, Kenya.
It was the second day of being stranded with his family in the car, without water, that he decided to set off at midday: “as the lions would be sleeping.” Philip walked about fifteen miles to get help.
Indeed, on some occasions, he climbed trees when lions approached.
Two German tourists, who became life-long friends, saw him from their car and one said, “that man is either drunk or mad – probably English.”
They were right about the last thing.
In 1970-71, Philip was manager of Cable and Wireless in Port Sudan.
The government was under pressure as commodity prices fell.
The year before Col. Nimeiri abolished parliament and started to nationalise banks.
He decided to increase corporate taxes for a small number of companies including Cable and Wireless from 30% to 60%.
At this time, Nimeiri bombed Aba Island on the Nile killing 12,000.
Philip flew to Khartoum to discuss the onerous taxes.
At night he would send coded messages to London from the embassy.
The government was intransigent and so he closed the cable office in Port Sudan.
He took a boat to sea and cut the cable, ending international communications for the country.
The next day he and the family were on a plane out of the country.
They had to leave at short notice and left the dog, Tammy behind.
A coup erupted, and Nimeiri was kicked out briefly by the Communist Party.
In the mid-1970s, Philip was in Bermuda and for a little time, was involved with communication for the NASA space effort which made use of his company’s earth stations around the world to communicate with its spacecraft, and relay these back to the United States.
Philip was born in Bradford in 1926, the oldest of three children.
He won a place at Thornton Grammar School, where he gained a love of German classical music from his German-language teacher, who played records in the class (quietly, as it was during the war).
His first job was with General Electric, where he developed better radio communication for RAF pilots.
A year or so later he joined Cable and Wireless and was posted to Alexandria where he married Jean.
He described her as “perfect.” She passed away in 2006.
He worked in many other places: Ascension, Singapore, Freetown, St. Helena, Aden, Hong Kong, Bahrain.
His last years with Cable and Wireless before retirement in the early 1980s were in the London Office.
Philip passed away quietly in his sleep, living independently and not having troubled his doctor for quite a few years.