OBITUARY: VIC MITCHELL, MIDDLETON PRESS FOUNDER AND AUTHOR, DIES AT 86
VIC MITCHELL, the founder and driving force behind Middleton Press and a father figure of both the Ffestiniog and Talyllyn Railways, died peacefully at his Midhurst, West Sussex home on January 18 after a short illness. It was not Covid-19 related; he was 86. With a total of 457 books to his credit (according to his family), Vic said it was the January 1951 issue of The Railway Magazine that changed his life. He was a self-confessed eccentric who knew he would never complete his lifetime’s ambition of authoring the definitive pictorial gazetteer of the UK’s entire railway network. He had a brave attempt at it however, and avid collectors of all his works will tell you that they take up around 40 feet of shelf space. Forever keen to plough his own furrow, Vic controversially funded a print version of the National Train Timetable after Network Rail ceased publication in 2007, ending a 160-year tradition. As an inventor, he won awards for patented devices that included a selfcomposting lavatory that was commended by the Duke of Edinburgh. The Mitchell family says that it is too early to decide what the future is for the Middleton Press imprint, which was still turning out new volumes at the rate of 10 a year until Vic fell ill just before Christmas. Following his father into dentistry, Joseph Charles Victor Mitchell’s introduction to railways was helping out at his local Hampton (West London) station during wartime, and it was “love at first sight” when he was treated to a day out on the Lyme Regis branch at the age of nine when LSWR Adams 4-4-2Ts still held sway. Vic’s introduction to Welsh narrow gauge was reading a new item on the plight of the Talyllyn in the January 1951 issue of The Railway Magazine (he was a lifelong subscriber) and he became a working volunteer under the authoritarian Tom Rolt. The same year, he attended the first revival meeting of the Ffestiniog at Bristol University, and at the age of just 20 became a director, sales officer, fireman to Alan Garraway, assistant guard… and just about everything else. The first foray into publishing in 1980 was a history of Midhurst station intended as a church fundraiser, and a writing partnership struck with former policemen Keith Smith continued until his death. Vic’s wife of over 50 years, Barbara, died in 2015, and he is survived by his daughters Deborah and Caroline and their husbands Ray and Andy, five grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren. A quiet funeral was held at St Mark’s Church, Easebourne on January 28, and a celebration of his life will be held when government restrictions are lifted. Howard Johnston ■ Vic Mitchell told the story of his life in a major feature in the June 2018 issue of The Railway Magazine.