About

• Summary:
  
  Eldest son of John Weston and Mary, Lionel followed in the family medical tradition, training at Cambridge and St Bartholomew’s in London. Leaving school in 1941 he volunteered for the RAF where he became a Flying Instructor in South Africa, transferring to fly Hurricanes operationally just as the war ended. Following this he qualified as a GP and joined the general practice in Ironbridge, Shropshire, working there until 1974 when he moved to a practice in Headley, Hampshire. A talented artist and with a keen interest in vintage and historic cars, this Archive contains much material relating to his skills and interests.
• Archive link: Link to Lionel's documents and images
• No of documents: 69
• No of Images: 63
• No of photo albums: 12
• No of media files: 3
• Born: Monday, 18 February 1924
• Birthplace: Kidderminster, Worcestershire
• Died: Tuesday, 09 March 1999
• Bio:

  Family:

  Lionel was the eldest of three sons born to John Weston and Mary and was to follow in the long family tradition, training in medicine at Cambridge and St Bartholomew’s to become a General Practitioner. His brother, Antony John, was a successful nurseryman in Kidderminster and his youngest brother, Robert Houghton known as Robin, had an engineering business in Bewdley before moving to Alton, Hampshire to set up a printing business.

  In 1949, Lionel married Beryl Whitfield Stone, daughter of Frank and Sibyl Stone, and had three children: Christopher, Jennifer and Jeremy.

  Lionel and Beryl’s marriage was not to last and, in 1969, he moved out to live with Gina Court. They married in 1971 and lived in Little Wenlock before Lionel moved to a new General Practice in Headley, Hampshire.

  Early days:

  The first family home was Westwood, on the corner of Bewdley Road and Cobden Street in Kidderminster. They later moved to Lea Grange at the top of Bewdley Hill. Lionel’s father’s photographs show the boys enjoying holidays in North Wales, where they took a touring caravan and persuaded a local farmer to let them stay on one of his fields. This was Moelyberth farm at Llangwnadl and so started a long love of this area by the family, Lionel later having a static caravan on what had, by then, become a ‘proper’ site.

  Education:
  Lionel attended Denstone Preparatory school before going to Sebright school where he passed his School Certificate in 1939. After the war he trained in medicine at Cambridge and St Bartholomew’s.

  World War 2
  In 1942 Lionel left Sebright and volunteered for the RAF only to be told that he was too young and to come back in six months. To pass this time he went to work for Short Brothers as a draughtsman on the Short Sterling bomber, where he learnt a skill that he would enjoy for the rest of his life as an artist and illustrator. At this time he also joined the Home Guard, which he recalled as being ‘very Dad’s Army’.

  In September 1942 Lionel was accepted into the RAF where his assessment at Sywell aerodrome passed him as suitable material for pilot training on Tiger Moths. In February 1943 he sailed on a troopship to Freetown, South Africa where he trained near Pretoria and qualified with his Wings in December 1943. On-going training saw Lionel pass out second on his course whereupon he was posted to Central Flying School at Bloemfontein to be trained as a Flying Instructor.

  By March 1945 Lionel, fed up with all the training focus, requested a transfer to Operations where he ‘converted’ to fly Hawker Hurricanes. Whilst undergoing this training VE Day arrived so he never saw active service.

  Back in the UK by December 1945, Lionel was stationed at Atcham RAF Station where he was refamiliarised with the Harvard. Ending with a short period as Flying Control Officer at Llandow near Cardiff, he was demobilised on 24 September 1946, four years to the day from when he joined the RAF.

  Lionel’s two RAF Flying Log books can be seen in the Archive here  and here

  In 1947, Lionel’s best friend, Lesley Butcher, who was still flying Hurricanes for reconnaissance work in South Africa, tragically died in an air accident. Lionel didn’t know the details of this until just before he died following Chris’ research which can be see here.

  Career:
  Following demobilisation from the RAF, Lionel was now able to commit to his medical training, first attending Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College. Moving to London with Beryl and young Christopher, who was born in 1950, they lived in Muswell Hill and Lionel completed his training at St Bartholomew's.

  Lionel’s first started work in November 1953, when he was appointed as a locum to assist Dr Malkin’s one-man, dispensing practice in Fownhope, Herefordshire. This work ended in August 1954 when Lionel was appointed as the junior partner in the Ironbridge general practice, joining brothers Anthony and Rupert Whitney. This was Lionel’s dream job and, by all accounts, he was an excellent doctor and well loved by his patients. The practice included two small community hospitals: The Beeches, a geriatric hospital in Madeley, where each Christmas Lionel’s children recall helping him serve turkey dinners to patients on the wards, and the Broseley Cottage Hospital, where Lionel carried out minor surgery and his children recall Christmas sherry and mince pies with Matron.

  The character of the Practice was to change significantly as the area started to be swallowed up by Telford New Town development and Lionel was particularly unimpressed when one of his patients, living on the caravan site for workers building the Ironbridge B power-station, told him to go and collect his prescription.

  In 1974, Lionel and Gina decided to leave the Telford area and, having secured a new GP post in a practice in Hampshire, moved to Headley Down. After retiring, Lionel worked part-time, doing Attendance Allowance medicals for the NHS.

  Houses:
  On moving to Ironbridge in 1954, and in a hurry to find somewhere to live, Lionel bought The Orchard, Church Hill, Ironbridge as the family home. This required much work, not least to tame the overgrown orchard and construct a vehicular access off Church Hill and a double garage on the hillside. The house is now Grade 2 listed and full of character with follies in the garden, specimen beech, cedar and walnut trees, and an interesting shape, being built on the side of the Severn Gorge having one story at the back and five at the front.

  Some years later Lionel sold The Orchard to Clifford Stanley, the headmaster moving into the area to set up the Abraham Darby Comprehensive school and the family moved up the hill to Hodge Bower and into The Old Rectory, overlooking construction of the Ironbridge B power-station, at Easter in 1964.

  Following separation from Beryl, Lionel moved briefly to a flat in Sutton Hill, Telford, then to Hillside House, Little Wenlock with Gina. They also owned Brook Cottage, Onibury near Ludlow for a while.

  In 1974 Lionel and Gina left Little Wenlock moving to White Gables, Furze Hill Road, Headley Down with Lionel’s new job. In 1988 they moved to Westfield, Liphook Road, Headley.

  Hobbies/Interests:
  Vintage and historic cars
  An interest in cars and motorbikes seems to have run in the family. Lionel’s grandfather. John Lionel, had one fo the very first cars in Worcestershire. When he was demobilised from the RAF, Lionel was keen to have his own wheels and soon had a motorbike. His father was not keen on this but couldn’t say ‘no’ to the experienced pilot!

  In the short time that Lionel spent with the RAF in South Wales his appetite for vintage cars was whetted by one of his colleagues at Llandow airfield who owned a Frazer Nash. Lionel‘s ambition to own one was fully realised, owning seven throughout his later life!

  Not only did Lionel have an interest in these old cars but he was also a skilled engineer, fabricating, rebuilding and maintaining cars in his own garages.

  The car that Lionel kept the longest was the Frazer Nash Targa Florio, XMC 2. Lionel owned this from 1967 until his death in 1999 using it regularly and, with nephew Martin Stretton, competing very successfully in the 1984 Targa Florio retrospective.

  Developing his automotive interests beyond the ‘amateur’, in the 1967 Lionel was instrumental in setting up Ironbridge Forge and Engineering Company on the Wharfage in Ironbridge. Established to produce new parts for Frazer Nashes and other vintage cars, Sidney Robinson, a retired engineer from the Black Country, was employed to run the operation. A year later the business had grown substantially and moved to Cleobury Mortimer where, with friends Ron Footitt and Mark Joseland, Cleobury Garages Ltd provided preparation and restoration of vintage and historic sports cars.

  Alongside his love of Frazer Nashes, Lionel often changed his vehilces. Starting on motorbikes, a BSA, Ariel and, later, a couple of Velocettes, he moved on to four wheels when his garages variously included, a Morgan three-wheeler, Riley 9, Alvis, Standard 8, a Goggomobil, VW beetles, a Healey Silverstone, two Lotus Elans and a Elan +2, a Reliant Scimitar, VW Karman Ghia, VW Variant, Saab 96, Lotus Cortina and number of Porsches.

  Lionel’s garage always contained a Porsche. Starting with a Pre-A 356, OBM 600, in the early 1960s, Lionel attended the inaugural meeting of the Porsche Club of Great Britain at Chateau Impney on 22 October 1961 and was to design the Club’s logo. In 1970 he was enrolled an Honorary Member of the club.

  Lionel’s interest in cars took him into competition at an early stage, starting with rallying of his everyday road cars in 1951, and being particularly successful in the VSCC’s Measham and Welsh rallies. In 1963 he was one of three Frazer Nashes that completed 1000 miles in 24 hours. Then, in 1964, he bought Rupert Instone’s GN Martyr Shelsley Special, a history of which can be seen here, and a short video of him competing at Curborough sprint in 1973. (Link to be added). Over the years he was very successful in competition, collecting much silver-ware. Rather than assembling more and more of this he eventually chose to put his on-going ‘trophies’ towards a more enjoyable prize and bought this picture with his winnings.

  The Archive  contains many photographs and magazine articles of Lionel’s cars and a short video of his association with XMC 2. (link to be added)

  Fishing
  Whilst working in the Ironbridge practice, Lionel’s day off was a Thursday when, often during the summer months, he would cast the flies he had tied over the winter for tasty brown trout on the River Onny, near Craven Arms. On holiday in North Wales, fishing off the rocks with the children or from boats for mackerel was a popular pastime and, further afield, he went with his youngest son, Jeremy, to sample the rivers of Scotland.

  Photography
  Lionel enjoyed photography and the result of this can be seen in the various albums in the Archive. Whilst at The Orchard he would black out the window of his study and convert it into a temporary dark-room to process his pictures, giving eldest son, Christopher, a life-long interest in the hobby from the first time he was shown the magic of an image developing in the red glow of the darkened room.

  Art & Illustration
  Lionel was a skilled artist, producing a range of material. In 1953 he started providing cartoons, sketches and drawings for the Vintage Sports Car Club’s Bulletin. Later, Lionel provided the Bulletin with Ludvig the Bear cartoon series and an appreciation of his work was published in the 200th edition of the VSCC Bulletin in 1993.

  With his love of Frazer Nashes, Lionel also provided much material for the Frazer Nash Car Club’s Chain Gang Gazette.  The Lionel Stretton Cup is awarded annually for the Best Gazette Contribution.

  Other work included car painting commissions, motor racing paintings, such as this of dicing Mercedes, illustrations for the Profile Publications, Book covers (eg The Chain-drive Frazer Nash by David Thirlby, The Austin Seven by R J Wyatt), and book illustrations (eg Power and Glory by William Court). In 1968 William and Lionel published a book entitled Car Engines with Now Books.

  Working with his brother Robin in the early 1970s, they setup Boost Graphics, a design and printing company, later moving the business to Alton, Hampshire. Lionel produced much of the commercial artwork for the business.

  As mentioned above, Lionel designed the logo/badge of the Porsche Club of Great Britain, Other such legacies are the logo/badge of the Historic Sports Car Club, which he also designed and that for the Red Arrows.

  Holidays
  Having enjoyed caravan holidays at Moelyberth in Llangwnadl from the age of about six, Lionel never lost his love for the area. In 1954 he bought an old caravan, refurbished it and towed it from Ironbridge to Llangwnadl behind a vintage Alvis. This caravan was left at Moelyberth and provided many years pleasure for the whole family. His brother Antony often accompanied him and Robin also had a permanent caravan on the same field. Pictures from these early days can be seen in this album.

  In 1959 and 1960 Lionel and Robin’s families enjoyed trips to Nant Gwrtheyrn where, in May 1933, the Frazer Nash Car Club held its very first event, attempting to climb the “Unclimbable” Screw Hill. Two thirds of the car were successful on that occasion but the more modern cars needed some outside assistance, as can be seen in this video. (Link to be added)

  Much of Lionel’s ‘spare’ time was enjoyed in the many motoring events in which he participated, ranging from rallies, weekend hill-climbs at Shelsley Walsh or Prescott, circuit racing at VSCC events to overseas Raids with the Frazer Nash Car Club and, in 1967 to watch the Targa Florio in Sicily. Pictures of many of these can be found in the Archive, here  and here

  Later in life Lionel enjoyed a trip across Canada by train and a safari in Kenya.

  Notable aspects:
  • Talented artist and illustrator. Cartoonist and illustrator for the Vintage Sports Car Club
  • Involved at the start of the Porsche Club of Great Britain and designed the Club’s logo/badge
  • Involved at the start of the Historic Sports Car Club and designed the Club’s logo/badge
  • Designed the logo for the Red Arrows
  • Drove XMC2 as an ‘Extra’ in the film Dance with a Stranger.

  Death:
  In 1980 Lionel was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease, having shown symptoms for a couple of years prior to this. Whilst this was clearly a frustration for him, when at his easel he remained able to paint and draw. Finally, succumbing to pneumonia he died on March 9th 1999 at Guildford hospital.

• Place of Death: Guildford
• Spouse: Beryl Whitfield (Nee Stone)
• Marriage Date: Saturday, 03 September 1949
• Spouse 2: Gillian Grace (Née Tolputt)
• Father: John Weston Stretton
• Mother: Mary (Née Smellie)
• Sibling-1: Antony John Stretton
• Sibling-2: Robert Houghton Stretton
• Child 1: Christopher Stretton
• Child 2: Jennifer Stretton
• Child 3: Jeremy Stretton