[Chris Ford]

My name is Chris Ford, son of Peter Ford. (out of the blue, I know)

I recently was looking at Mapleleafup.org in an effort to contact some of my father's old CMP friends about what to do with his old '43 Ford 15 hwt. F15 A. Unfortunately I no longer have the space for it. I'm therefore looking for a new home for it. Museum? Local enthusiast? I was going to post on the site, but I was shocked and saddened to see the site was no longer there. Digging deeper, I found the site's new home as was quite relieved. Then I read about Geoff's passing, and was again shocked, saddened and sorry to hear about it. It seems my dad was one of very many who held him in high esteem.

While looking at the forum, I saw the thread about "handing it down" and recognized the title of the 'CMP 84 Seminar' tapes mentioned. I looked through my basement and found 3 reels of 5, on beta cassettes (betamax Keith, betamax! Does anyone else still have betamax? There are 5 tapes because they are all shorter than your typical VHS). I plugged them in and found the sound quality to be just fine. Tonight I managed to locate the other two reels. One of the tapes seemed to have some mic feedback and light hissing that rendered the speakers difficult to understand - though probably not for you guys - I just didn't know much about what he was discussing. Maybe any future formats should have subtitles for the difficult parts. I'm not sure what would be the most efficient way to get them out there for the interested world, but I'm looking to send them to Keith as he seems quite interested in working on them.

I feel pretty happy to still have these tapes and to be able to help out. A few years ago, when I was going through the 3000 or so beta tapes my dad had (that's right he didn't just collect military vehicles!), I made the decision to keep those tapes, though I didn't really know what they were. I figured, that someday I might get into the CMP world and if so, these tapes might be a good source of info to start me on my way. I decided to check out the first part of the first tape to get an idea of what the seminar was about and was really pleased and surprised to see my dad was a coordinator for it. It was really neat to see him as a 47 year old man and listen to his passionate introductory comments for the convention about the importance of the war efforts, including cmp production, to our history and culture.

After my dad died, I had wanted to get involved with infoex, maybe even continue updating and publishing it. But the task seems beyond my resources. In the ten years since his passing, life has just moved from one thing to another, my life has taken its own direction, and I don't really foresee too many "let's become a world expert on an entirely new hobby" moments opening-up anytime soon!! With one little boy and another on the way, my hands are nice and full. Both Elizabeth (my sister) and I feel discomfort that it has sat shelved for so long. We are proud of our dad's work and his knowledge in this field but we remain as unsure today as we did a decade ago, as to what we should do with it. She had talked to Marc Montgomery about it a long time ago, but then we never really moved on it. Any thoughts about what should be done with infoex? What would be of most benefit to cmp enthusiasts and to cmp history?

Thanks for your time, and for maintaining such a high quality and important website,
-Chris Ford

p.s. (and not a small p.s.) I would like to pass on a great big thank you to those who have been involved in CMP preservation. Not only because of the great service it does to Canada and the Commonwealth, but because of the people who inspired and shared a passion with my dad. It was one of his greatest joys to partake in conversations with this community. Further I would like to thank you for the heartwarming comments that were made shortly after his death. It truly helped to ease the pain to hear that he was so well appreciated and respected. Ten years later I am still thankful for your kindness and reading even today people commenting on him and his work, really makes my family and me proud.