It's with deep sadness that I have to inform everyone that Phil Thomas, who published many plans and wrote numerous books, passed away last week...

I only ever spoke to hime once, but he was a real gentleman, who would bend over backwards to help a fellow modeller.

He will be missed!

Regards
Eddy

I too am sorry to hear of Phils death, his book BRITISH STEAM TUGS is a classic  and will always be in demand. I used to speak to him on the phone regularly and though he had health problems for many years he never complained.He spent the latter part of his life deeply involved with the BALLAST TRUST, an organisation tasked with the job of collecting and preserving Scotlands  maritime history documents for posterity. We had many a laugh of his descriptions of going into attic drawing offices which had not been opened for many years and trampling through ankle deep pidgeon skeletons to reach files of ship plans going back more than a century then removing them lock stock and barrel to examine and file them in the trusts stores. Another time I rang him in desperation after spending five years looking for a particular set of plans. Conversation went thus: "Hey Phil, the university set of plans was stolen a few years ago". He said "right leave it with me". Next day came a call "Do you want the good news or the bad news". "Okay bad first". "ive found you two shipyard plans but one is 48th scale and the internals are 60th scale". "So whats the good news?" These are the last sets in existense". Two days later a large tube arrived with copies of   two large plans. Total cost? Five pounds!!!. What a great guy he was and will be sadly missed by everyone interested in ships. Not too long ago he sent me some large lists of locations of paddler plans on the Clyde even down to which files they were in and the reference numbers. What a man. My condolences to his family and close friends on the Clyde. Regards, Walter.

Truely a great loss.

I have fond memroies as a child pestering Phil for a shot of his latest model at the local pond or display.

It was nearly 20 years later that i bought a Joffre kit and began modelling myself

My condolences to his family

I echo all of the above.  I met phil a couple of times in the archive section of the Scottish maritime museum and found him to be a genuine gentlleman, always willing to help.  A sad loss indeed.

My codolences also to his family and close friends