Born at Pond Hall in 1921, Tony was the eldest of the three children born to Lawrance and Hettie Billing. Hettie had presumably wanted to be with her mother rather than with her in-laws in Derby for the birth of her first child. It was probably out of financial necessity, however, that Tony later lived at Pond Hall and went to the same Hadleigh school as his contemporary, his aunt Diana (born 1919). They are pictured together, left. Tony enjoyed the humour of the situation and was very fond of his young aunt; Diana returned the affection but was rather put out at being hailed as 'Auntie' across the playground.
He was very disappointed to miss out on going to grammar school - by just one place - and always felt that the course of his life would have been changed for the better if he had gone there.
By the time this 1934(ish) photo of him was taken, he had joined the Royal Artillery at Woolwich Arsenal as a boy soldier. He did well there and went on to become an artificer - a top technician - looking after the guns, such as 25 pounders and howitzers, in the artillery. He claimed to have chosen that trade because you were made sergeant on completion of the course and staff sergeant soon after that.
He was transferred into the REME at their inception in 1942. His first post after training was in Ceylon, in charge of mostly locally recruited men in base workshops. His sister Christine, serving with the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, was posted there at the same time. All 'QA's had officer status and although it seems they met, she would or could not allow him into the officer's mess which, understandably, rankled with him.
After the war he was posted to Sennybridge in South Wales. The army held dances in the camp and buses brought in people from the local area, including a pretty country girl from Rhosmaen, near Llandeilo, called Rowena Williams, whose first language was Welsh. Soon afterwards Rowena and Tony married. Tony's next posting was to Middlesborough, where they lived "at one end of a drill hall" (David). Their first child, David, was born in Middlesborough in 1948. David relates a story from this time: "Tony bought Rowena a pretty early design of washing machine. Instead of being pleased she burst into tears! Eventually he managed to get out of her the reason – he obviously thought that she wasn’t doing a good enough job of cleaning his clothes!"
They next moved to Fallingbostel in Germany, where Tony became a Warrant Officer Class 1 attached to the Royal Scots Greys. "They had one Regimental WO1 (the RSM) and a REME WO1 (the ASM), which was Tony, looking after the wellbeing of the tanks and especially their guns. I think he would say that was the best time of his life - nobody bosses around a WO1 in the army! He and the RSM were big mates and they ruled all they could see. Being a cavalry regiment it was very glamorous with a fabulous social life". (David)
Malaya came next, then several different places in Germany all in the following 10 years, during which Jennifer was born (in 1951). At the age of 10, David was sent to the Duke of York's Royal Military School in Dover: "I’d never used English money until I went to that school. Tony took me to school for the first term then after that they would put me on a train in Dusseldorf at midnight (I remember 5th class Danish rail carriages with plywood seating) and I would roll up in Dover about 18 hours later having caught ferries and buses on the way. It seemed to be the norm in those days but I would never have let my children do it. I used to hate writing letters (plus ca change) so they wouldn’t know if I got there or not for weeks!" (David)
At about this time Richard was born (1959), followed by Nicholas in 1960. It was also in about 1959 that the army finally gave him a commission. Having been a Warrant Officer and an important man wherever he had worked for a long time, he was given his one 'pip' and suddenly he was a dogsbody again. From when he was commissioned to when he left the army there was always this captain or that major making his life a misery.
David continues: "Throughout his life Tony always had a consuming passion driving him. When I was very small it was steam engines. Then valve radios. Then rallying. Then when he was about 38 he got the karting bug and that really stayed with him until the end. When he had been in Germany (before Hong Kong) he decided to give the soldiers (national servicemen, mostly) something of a hobby and something to pass the time at weekends. He was in the REME and consequently had a fully equipped workshops to play with. He used to make his own chassis and chose a make of engine called Stihl (as in hedgetrimmers and other garden machinery). Tony used to race against the factory sponsored team and he used to beat them hollow! And of course at 38 or so he was quite old for that sort of thing. He became national karting champion of Germany and was then posted to Hong Kong. When he got there he took the fledgling kart scene by the scruff of the neck; by the time he left it was quite big business. One of the team members owned the Peninsula Hotel so his money combined with the obliging nature of the RAF meant international race meetings were no problem. They used to go to Manila as well. [The photo shows Tony at a race meeting in Singapore in about 1962]
Almost the last posting Tony had was to Anglesey where there was at that time an artillery unit on the west coast. He and Rowena grew to love Anglesey and they ended up retiring there when he finally left the army in his fifties (about 1970). He set himself up to manufacture small industrial engines. He had built up an allegiance with Stihl and he used many components from Stihl in his own engines. His engines were called Rowena Light Engines. At one time, I think about 1978, if you looked in the Guinness book of records for the smallest twin engined aircraft you would have seen that the aircraft was a Cri-Cri built by a Frenchman and that it employed 2 x Rowena engines. Although Tony was a mechanical genius his business skills were not in the same order and the engines never made him rich. However, the Stihl importer to GB visited and told him that he had more spare parts on the shelf than many chainsaw dealers and suggested that Tony add another string to his business bow by becoming a dealer. He duly did so and from about 1971 onwards Rowena became successful Stihl dealers and have been ever since". (The business is now run by David).
When Richard was about 17, before he had finished his A-Levels, Tony persuaded him to go and train as an apprentice toolmaker in Mr Stihl’s factory in Stuttgart, Germany. Richard didn’t have any German but within 6 months was fluent - apparently he speaks it with a broad Stuttgart (Swabian) accent. Toolmaking is a highly valued trade and Richard did so well in his apprenticeship that Mr Stihl gave Richard a job. After a few years Tony tempted Richard to come home and help make the engines. Nick went off to the RAF from school and he, too, was encouraged to leave and join the family business by Tony. Jen too worked for her father before she got married.
"Tony’s final passion was for playing the organ. He had always been into church choirs all through his life. He liked to attend church wherever he lived and always joined the choir. If there wasn’t one there he started one and became the choir master! The little church he was finally a member of only had a congregation of 6 or 7 so no choir there and it didn’t even have an organ. He set about finding an organ, stripped it down and refurbished it and then assembled it in the church. Of course they didn’t have an organist so at about 60 he decided to learn to play the organ. He had a short course at the Royal school of Church Music and was still having lessons when he died. He would get up at crack of dawn on Sunday for a final practice and he never got over the pre-performance nerves. There were many bum notes". (David)
Tony died in 1989 and Rowena in 1996.
The photo shows Tony and Rowena, with sister-in-law, Jean Billing (far left), on a visit to Mick and his family in Singapore in approximately 1963. The children are Jennifer, Nicholas and Richard and then Tony's nephew and niece, John and Frances Billing.