My father, Fred Stone, who has died aged 89, was a precision engineer and toolmaker as well as an expert model train maker.
In the 1970s and 80s he built a successful toolmaking business in Brighton, East Sussex, supporting local companies such as Dugard and Brighton Sheet Metal. As well as components for white goods, his small workshop in Brighton’s Farm Road helped make parts for jobs as different as the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine toy, Brighton’s floral clock, and thousands of T-shaped trucks that powered the UK’s first skateboard craze in the late 70s.
