AMES HELLICAR (F 25-30) died on 21st December 2008. His daughter Belinda kindly provided the following appreciation:

“Ames Hellicar was brought up in the Lake District where he lived at Rough Close, on Esthwaite Water next to Lake Windermere. He went to Seascale Prep School in May 1920 from where he was awarded the top scholarship to St Bees.
Ames took some time to settle down at St Bees but very much enjoyed his later years there. Although not a great games player, he captained the 2nd XV and made the first XV in his last term. In those days St Bees had a very good 1st XV – tough because they played the local mining villages, Aspatria, Cleator Moor and Egremont and could cope with local secondary grammar schools and Giggleswick (but never Sedbergh, who always beat them). In the summer of his last year, he and some other pupils laid out a 9 hole golf course, which still exists. They borrowed the horse-drawn mower which was used on the school cricket pitch, but without the horse. Ames got out of helping to pull the mower by claiming experience with a scythe. Much later, he used this skill, honed on the playing fields of St Bees, in the orchard of the Old Glass House in Chester where he lived for close on 60 years.  
One year all the pupils arrived a day early at the beginning of term, having been given the wrong date. The headmaster set them all to learn great chunks of Dryden, which Ames could still quote in his nineties.
From St Bees he went to Wadham College to read Chemistry. On the sports field, he gave up Rugby after suffering concussion on a couple of occasions and took up rowing, gaining a place in the 1st VIII. They won no cups at Henley, but the boat-club sold an old VIII boat to a London club, which they rashly said they would deliver. One or two crews had rowed to London taking 3 days, but the Wadham eight completed the journey in two days. This was December and to do the 50 or 55 miles (105 total) in a day meant starting in the dark; somebody went ahead by road and got the lock-keepers to have the locks open, which made a big difference. The achievement made a double-page spread in the News Chronicle.
After a brief spell at ICI, Ames moved to Chester and took over running the Lead Works. However, at the start of the war he joined the Royal Engineers and volunteered to go to India where he joined the Bengal Sappers and Miners. There he became part of the Field Troop (Horse Engineers), which however soon became mechanised and became the Field Squadron, driving mainly Fordson Trucks but with one WW1 Rolls Royce armoured car, which Ames delighted in. 
Then, he was seconded to North Africa to help in the desert war. Here he had a miraculous escape with his commanding officer, Pierce Hayes, when as an advanced patrol they came across a fleet of German tanks that had advanced much further than anticipated. They dived to the ground and pretended to be dead and the tanks at the last moment swerved to avoid them. They then scrambled to a nearby truck whilst the Germans were rounding up the rest of the Allied troops, and drove off eventually to Tobruk, from where they were evacuated to Cairo.   From there they finally hitched a lift in a Sunderland flying boat back to Karachi and then onto Rowkhee where he was stationed.
Back in India he was made responsible for a number of engineering projects, building many bridges with local labour and materials, and using ingenious erection methods. He was also responsible for designing and building the last three mile section of what became known as the Tiddim Road (a 160 mile road between Imphal and Tiddim). This last section was a magnificent switchback, climbing 2,000 feet with 30 hairpin bends up to Tiddim village. This has gone down in the annals of the Royal Engineers as the chocolate stairway because of the effect that rain had on the dark brown mud, which formed the basis of the road.
Next, he was seconded to the Indian Army and then to one of the Princely States - the Maharajas had their own separate small armies which they volunteered for attachment to the Indian Army - so he could have been said to have been in the service of the Maharaja of Tehri-Gawahl. He enjoyed the fact that, on his last promotion, he went from being the oldest Major in the company to the youngest Lieutenant Colonel. 
After the war Ames returned to managing the Lead Works in Chester, a post he held until his retirement in 1976.
In 1946, he married Elisabeth Jackson (nee Eddison), who had been widowed during the war. Ames and Elisabeth had two children to add to the two daughters from Elisabeth’s previous marriage and enjoyed a long and happy marriage, which ended just before their diamond anniversary when Elisabeth died in 2004.
When he returned to the Lead Works, it was in a run down condition, but in the next 25 years, ten departments were either re-built or reconstructed and the works converted from DC to AC electricity supply. He introduced many innovations and improved the safety record out of all recognition, always being meticulous in his dealings with the staff and their safety. He showed much compassion for those in straitened circumstances.
Although a chemist by training, he was at heart an engineer with a terrific flair for inventions. There wasn’t a single piece of equipment that entered the Old Glass House that escaped modification. Of especial note were the reverse gear he fitted to the 36 inch Atco mower to improve its manoeuvrability, the security devices that he fitted to the outside doors, the automatic light switches, an amazing device for painting room ceilings and several aids to improve his and Elisabeth’s mobility around the house. He re-roofed the house in his 70s and he was still wallpapering in his 90s! Even later, he was working on a walking invalid chariot as he had begun to feel that the wheel was much overrated for personal transport.
He also became a very useful woodworker, building tables, jardinières, chairs, corner cupboards and wheelbarrows, many of which are still in use at the Old Glass House and at several other locations in the country. These were often produced from wood grown in the garden which he had not only felled, but also planked in a saw pit he constructed using an oak sapling to work the other end of the two-handled, six-foot saw. He tried his hand at painting and sculpture and took over the kitchen when Elisabeth’s health began to fail, inventing a bread-slicing device which enabled any thickness of bread to be accurately cut with parallel sides! He started to bake his own bread in his 80s, only giving up when he was 93.

Throughout his life he always acted in a gentlemanly way, he always had time to talk to people whatever their station and this is one of the reasons why he was so much loved and respected by all who knew him.”