I can’t post this in the “celebrities” thread as Ron always wanted privacy during his life (as he had to do a lot of stuff like work on govt surveillance and communications systems for nuclear installations as well as RAF (he had a full pilots license!) what wasn’t quite in line with his principles simply to earn a living and feed his family, and divulging his identity would also have jepoardised his work and family.
last year my friend Ron Sewell who taught me a lot about the basic principles of telecoms took ill and suddenly got admitted to Addenbrookes (not the first time either), and at the end of January passed away recently from kidney cancer (he had been mentioning that he was unwell and had been exposed throughout life to strong radiation (both ionising and non ionising), asbest, and also smoked for much of his life.
Ron however was also best mates with Syd Barrett and they would build sound equipment together, until Syd did way too many drugs and got mentally ill. At that point he joined the British Post Office as an engineer, then later worked for Neve/Soundcraft ( (making studio mixers) but in the end had to go freelance working on various radio communications project for the MOD and other organisations. He also sent me loads of info about the 60s and 70s, and that generation in East Anglia partied as hard as the youths did! He was also responsible for a lot of middle aged/older people tuning in to PVR reggae stream as it reminded them of their national service and being posted abroad and allowed to mingle with “coloured people”. also reggae is good to test the limits of a hi fi system.
He also told me loads of stuff about his family (who originate from DE and NL) and how they were totally split up during WW II and one of his relatives has serious mental issues as her Dad was a very prominent Nazi, and although he was in RAF reserves and his son is still serving (hence the need for secrecy), explained how fucked up WW II really was as it was two very similar nations and people killing each other, and more so was the Cold War (as it diverted so much of the best brains and resouces of this country from genuine public service to military surveillance) and warned me that “Europe risks repeating history if we are not careful”.
