Paul McCarthy, who had extensive connections with a number of AWP manufacturing companies in South Wales in the 1970/80s, has died aged 73 after a long illness.
Paul passed away at home on Sunday, leaving a wife, Ilse, daughter Louise and grandson Patrick.
Paul had his own development and manufacturing company in Terarose and was latterly operating a plastics factory up to his death.
He was the younger brother of Michael McCarthy, who made his initial fortune starting and running successful coin machine manufacturers.
He began with Ace Coin Equipment in Cardiff and went on to help form Signet, at one time the leader in the UK AWP business, and then Thesis. Mike passed in August of last year.
Paul had an involvement with several of those businesses before a successful stint with Terarose. He was with Mike’s highly successful Signet, which was famous for the Safari AWP, and then started another manufacturing company named Thesis, where Paul rose to sales director.
One of Paul’s first machines was the Limelight, launched at Blackpool in 1974. In the 1980s he joined the video games revolution with Gateway Electronics, where his Phoenix model was very successful.
Utilising his in-house electronics R&D team, Paul went on to develop a household digital security system which was so innovative that he appeared on the BBC programme Tomorrow’s World. Paul sold the company in the late 1980s to Lord Michael Ashcroft’s ADT Security company.
Never one to sit still, Paul’s next venture was to establish Mouldings UK and for over 30 years has supplied the construction industry with 110V electronic transformers.
“The chances are if you see one of the millions of yellow transformer boxes on building sites it came from one of his factories in South Wales,” said his nephew, also named Paul, Mike’s son.
InterGame’s David Snook said: “Paul was one of that generation of AWP producers from the 1970s/80s based in South Wales. He rubbed shoulders with people like Jack Jones, the Parkers Alan and Howard, Ernie Beaver, Arthur Thomas, Tony Lynch, Jeff Hull and many others. Sadly, few of them are still with us.
“He was a very intelligent man, never in his big brother’s shadow and always full of fun. But he was also an acute businessman, illustrated by his independent successes. Another that will be missed. Our sympathy to his family.”
Funeral details will follow in the next few days.
