Franklyn Angus Davin-Wilson

 

Franklyn Angus Davin-Wilson d. 1st January 1984

Born in Winterbourne on the outskirts of Bristol, now part of South Gloucestershire, Frankly with with his parents and brother (Warwick) at the "Villa de France" which is a grand name but I believe a small farm back in the 1970s. Franklyn did not get on with either his brother or father and rebelled by using his mother's maiden name (Davin) to make the surname Davin-Wilson.

Franklyn was a graduate of Bristol Boys Grammar School and it seems a few graduates could be labelled eccentric in some way -I met at least one of his peers who not only looked like him but had the same mannerism in speaking (a proper education) and also smoked his cigarette, like Frankly, the "way gentlemen do".

He hated wasps. Apparently when he was a child a swarm had chased him and he had to take refuge in a farm shed. Wasps getting too close where not killed; Franklyn clapped his hands close to them and they were stunned until he moved or moved them. One he accidentally killed looked odd to him so he took it to Bristol City Museum where it was checked and found to be a new species -I assumed it carries his name.

I know Franklyn spent some time in the British Army and not sure whether he was attached to or actually in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC),  He was a member (I later found out a founder) of the British Computer Society, hence usage of MBCS in official letters. In the early 1970s he campaigned for the use of computers in UFO studies and even designed a punch card system specifically to get the most data from UFO reports. He presented the idea to both the British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) and Contact (UK) and although Brinsley le poer Trench (later Lord Clancarty) thought the idea had "great merit" he "regretted" that no funds were available for such an undertaking. BUFORA, calling for the need for more scientific investigation gave Franklyn the run around until finally admitting that "Maybe it's something for the future when the situation has improved more" (ie: no money.

Franklyn also championed computer analysis of UFO photographs which, again, no UK group was interested in. "They are just clubs: we need science!" he told me in frustration.

Franklyn could go from cheeky playfulness to livid if angered. He was reading through a copy of a book by Ian Ridpath (astronomer) and yelled out "***** piece of crap!" and threw it across the room. He immediately apologised as he like my collection of "very interesting books".  At one point in the late 1970s he suffered a complete mental and physical breakdown and admitted himself to Manor Park Hospital. I visited daily all day until he started to recover.  Due to his breakdown I managed to see how the mind could affect the body and that helped with later UFO research.

I once saw a photo of Franklyn as a young man and had to look twice; he was thickset, had a very thick black beard and black hair swept back. Unfortunately, respiratory and kidney problems kicked in and he lost weight and hair. I visited him several times to find him red faced and gasping for breath and with a cough that got me concerned enough, along with the cracking coming from his chest, to tell him I was going to phone for a doctor (you could in those days). I knew that he had discussed the matter with his doctor, I had even chatted with the doctor, and I knew he had suggested Franklyn try "a special med". I found out that this was cannabis -illegal in those days for the doctor to suggest and Franklyn to buy but he knew a semi hippy couple and got cannabis from them. He knew my stance on drugs which is why he kept the use quiet (I had thought the smell was coming from a flat below on a couple occasions (Franklyn lived in old flats on Hotwells Road at the time). He could hardly "roll up" as he hacked out more coughing and gasped for breath so I had to roll him aa joint on the understanding he never tell anyone I had. I watched as within ten minutes the cough lessened and his breathing grew better. After that I started looking at the medical use of cannabis.

Franklyn scribbled notes in various coloured inks -ha had a system that he once explained but forget after all of this time. He had a large file of original research on Astronomers and UFOs, Unidentified Orbital Objects, Mars Mysteries and so on. I learnt one thing from Franklyn which has stuck with me all of my life.

I was showing him some research work when he visited my home and read through it. "You have two references for each case" he said. I happily nodded and he then looked at me and said: "Get three more. Get as many references as you can and cross check  what each says and if you can go to each source if you cannot get to the (witness) source!" Fully referenced is what I have done since and it was a good lesson to learn as I found how "very reliable" sources turned out not to be. It's why I do a lot of archive research and find so many photos, items or original sources "long lost" -it helps with peer review, too.

Franklyn could not type to save his life whereas I had been typing since I was 14 years old. He had gone to a pro typing agency to have his report on the Mirage of Bristol That Appears in Alaska. It was expensive and so I got roped in, through vary devious means (telling me how good and fast my typing was!). 

In 1983 I was admitted to hospital and on getting home found that Franklyn was finally going to have his kidney operation and it seemed to work and over Christmas dinner we discussed the major projects planned for 1984 on. He bid me a cheery farewell that evening and I had no idea that was to be the last time I would see him.

On getting back from work at the start of the new year my grandmother told me that a very polite young man who had bowed when greeting her (I knew that was Franklyn's hippy friend) had called around to speak to me. And when I finally met up with Ron and his partner it was to be told Franklyn had died on new year's day. He had apparently been feeling "a bit under the weather" so retired to bed just before midnight. When he was not up early next morning Rob checked and found Franklyn had died. At tat time, even after a major operation, warfarin was not prescribed to prevent blood clots and had it been prescribed then the blood clot that caused Franklyn's heart attack would not have formed.

I was then presented with a problem. I had no transport and the landlord wanted Franklyn's stuff removed within two days or it was going to be dumped in a skip. I ended up walking across the city and then a return was with three crammed bin liner bags and they were falling apart. At one point an old chap came out of his house and looked as I tried to push the papers back into the bin liners "I know what you need, son" he said and then went back inside to re-emerge a couple minutes later with a wheel barrow and he trusted me, a stranger, to return it. The next mile home was sheer joy!  I unloaded the bags and returned the wheelbarrow.

Franklyn had been a committee member of the British Flying Saucer Bureau and, with his work, a founding member of Project Grey Book. His whole outlook was to get science involved in UFO research. A good friend and an unknown British Ufologist these days. His archives are safely stored with my own.

Another founder, again a forgotten Ufologist, was Dave Cowdy who helped form Manchester Flying Saucer Research in the4 1950s had moved to Bristol and died a few years before from a heart attack (Dave taught me a lot about identifying fake UFO photos -his records and photos were lost when he died suddenly and the council moved in and ignored his written request (which a neighbour also told them of) that if anything happened to him I should be contacted to collect his papers.