S/L Roland William Carter RIP

Kyt · Apr 5, 2009

Lancaster pilot Roland William Carter was skilled furniture restorer - Edinburgh Evening News

BOMBER pilot, businessman and furniture restorer Roland Carter has died aged 93.

Roland William Carter was born in Edinburgh on July 4, 1915, to Charlie and Catherine Carter, and was the youngest of four siblings.

Educated at Heriot's, he picked up his father's skills for electrical engineering, inventing a clock-light combination at the age of 12 and selling them for £2 apiece.

He left school during a depression and he found himself queuing up with 500 other hopefuls looking for a job with Bell's Whisky.

Mr Carter managed to get the job, working in an office, and stayed there for almost a decade, before buying a factory on Thistle Street where he employed around 80 machinists to manufacture fabric lampshades.

Following the outbreak of the Second World War, Mr Carter signed up for the Royal Air Force, fulfilling a childhood ambition to be an airman.

He rapidly progressed his career in the RAF, becoming a squadron leader with Bomber Command. He flew Lancasters on missions into Germany.

It was during the war that Mr Carter met and married his first wife Wilma, who bore his son Alan. Sadly her life ended in tragic circumstances in the 1950s. After the end of the war Mr Carter had returned to his factory but soon moved on to another venture, selling furniture in Stockbridge from a shop he had purchased, which he named the Dean Galleries.

In 1959 Mr Carter met his second wife Mae Ramage, now 75. The pair met in a pub on Dean Street near the photographic studio where Mae worked.

She initially mistook him for a bookie's runner and ignored his advances, and it was only when one of her managers asked for a line to be taken to the bookies that she discovered he was in fact the owner of the furniture store.

They were married in the Bruntsfield Registrars office on July 4, 1960, and soon afterwards Mr Carter moved into running public houses, opening the Jolly Carters on Thistle Street, and then the Laughing Duck and the Purple Onion.

Sadly the businesses ran into financial difficulty and Mr Carter lost all three bars, as well as his home in Dalkeith.

The couple were offered a farm cottage to live in rent-free, on Esperson Farm just outside Edinburgh, and they worked hard to re-establish the home.

Mae started a flower hire business which eventually produced enough money for them to buy Kiln Cottage, near Gorebridge, where they would stay the rest of their lives. The money also helped pay for six shop units in St Leonard's in Edinburgh, where Mr Carter turned his hand to restoring pine furniture.

The couple also opened up Shrimp's Danish Restaurant in St Leonard's, which soon became very well known, attracting stars from productions at the Playhouse and counting former Bond Girl Diana Rigg among its fans. Mr Carter finally retired from furniture restoration when he was 80 but, a skilled model-maker, he continued to produce the miniature pine furniture that filled his home.

His school heritage always stayed with him, and whenever there was a rugby match on the television he would insist on silence in the house.

He is survived by his wife Mae, son Alan, a grandson and a great-grandson.
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In the LG he is entered as Rowland William CARTER (150064

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S/L Roland William Carter RIP

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