I have known Melvin as a friend and colleague since we worked together in the Southend Telephone exchange in the late sixties. He was a knowledgeable and excellent engineer well respected and liked by his friends and colleagues. More recently my wife and I rekindled our friendship at the U3A meetings where he seemed fit and well and talked lovingly of his family in The Netherlands. We are both shocked and saddened by his passing. Our thoughts go out his family.