In memory of Stephen Herbert Lees Brown (1st Dec 1944 – 9th April 2025)
Keen student Stephen Brown arrived at Brighton College in September 1958 after prep school at St Christopher’s, in Hove, entering Mr Geoff Lees’ Aldrich House – a teacher who Stephen always credited with giving him sound advice on how to live his future life.
Although his academic prowess followed later, he swiftly developed a love for rugby at St Christopher’s which continued throughout his days at Brighton College - and for the rest of his life, cheering from the stands of Sixways as a season ticket-holder of Premiership side Worcester Warriors.
At Brighton College he boxed for his house and played water polo for the school team as goalkeeper – a position he was best suited to, being tall enough to stand in the deep end! He used to say how thrilled he was that his team were rarely beaten … except by Sandhurst!
Sciences soon joined sport to become his forte and in 1963, on the sage advice of his chemistry teacher, he headed north to Leeds University to study Metallurgical Engineering, proudly leaving in 1967 with his degree … and a blossoming romance with his future wife, Gail.
Those were the bustling days of Britain’s world-respected, roaring manufacturing industry, and he was one of the early graduate trainees at engineering firm James Neill & Co, in Sheffield. With a Diploma in Management Studies now on his CV, courtesy of Sheffield University by 1970, he was production manager.
It was a difficult time for industry in the early 70’s with regular power cuts and union unrest but he felt the experience “stood him in good stead” for the future.
In 1977, he was joined Britool in Wolverhampton – sparking a move from Sheffield to the West Midlands. By now Kidderminster, in Worcestershire, was the fledgling family’s base, with Stephen and Gail by now joined by two young daughters Charlotte, and two years later Caroline.
Stephen first became MD of a firm suppling the car industry, then one manufacturing burners for the new recycling plants – a sign of the green industries to come.
Finally, in the late 1980’s he joined prestigious US giant Cincinnati Milacron in Birmingham, as operations director - leading the development of a revolutionary new range of computer-controlled cutting equipment.
Times were rapidly changing in the industry, and later Stephen became business development director for the group in Europe, India and China – and an exciting new life in Beijing for Stephen and Gail beckoned.
They soaked up their new adventure in China, learning the country’s own ways of doing business – which sometimes involved trying to get rivals ‘merry’ to get them to sign a worse deal. Luckily for Stephen, he could drink most men under the table and their underhand ploy never worked!
With the impending birth of his first grandchild and a ‘job well done’ setting up new business ties in China the couple returned to Britain – with Stephen becoming general manager of the US firm’s Birmingham-based UK office before his retirement.
But retirement was not a closing of the book of his life, merely the start of a busy new chapter.
Tending to his roses and his gardening, fine cigars and barbecues surrounded by music and laughter aside, Stephen was not finished with his work.
He launched himself into helping others, whether as trustee of a medical education charity, chairman of the local NADFAS Group (The Arts Society), Round Table or The 41 Club.
He and Gail also helped found a charity supporting Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land. The couple, with their shared deep Christian faith, travelled to the Holy Land several times to see how their fundraising was changing real lives there for the better.
But at his very core Stephen was a loving husband, a proud and doting father and a fun, full-hearted and kindly grandfather – and by all who knew and loved him, he will be sadly missed.