Page 155 - WHO'S WHO OF DUDLEY ROTARY

United Kingdom. The Christian hill was dedicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in 2009
Narayan presented his Seven Faith Hills concept to the World Parliament of Religions in
Australia. In 2005 he hosted a meeting of the European Council of Religious Leaders at Tividale.
He served as a Board member of Dudley College (1991-2002).

518 Anthony Roger THORNETT (1955- ) (Inducted 19.1.1987; left 30.6.2003.)
Finance, Investment Management, and later Pension Consultant. He
started as Senior financial advisor and insurance broker with the Dudley
branch of the Kendall White Group, briefly in Wellington Road and then
Wolverhampton Street. In 1991 he was made a director of Kendall White
and associated firms West Midland Investment Management Limited of
Dudley and Kendall White Millar of Darlington. Early in 1993 he moved to
the branch at Fordhouses, Wolverhampton. At the end of that year he left
Kendall White and joined The Hornbuckle Mitchell Group of Leicester and
its subsidiary company Pension Planning (HM) Limited as a director. About May 1998 he moved
house from Perton to Finchfield, Wolverhampton and set himself up as a Financial Consultant
and Independent Financial Adviser in his own name - Thornett and Co - operating from home.
He moved business and home again in 2007 to the hamlet of Faintree 5 miles SW of Bridgnorth.
He was born in Newcastle upon Tyne although his parents were originally from Birmingham. He
is a keen golfer and motor cyclist, and is now a director of the Neenton Community Society which
has saved the nearby village pub.

519 Timothy (‘Tim’) John ROWE (1944- ) (Inducted 8.6.1987; still a member at 2022.) Brass goods
manufacturing. Owner and Managing Director of John Buckley (Dudley)
Ltd, specialists in brass and non-ferrous hot stamping, of Alma Place,
Dudley. The firm was founded by Tim’s great grandfather John Buckley in
1883 to make fenders and fire irons. Immediately before the last War it
started stamping brass for customers such as Rolls Royce and Dunlop,
during the war made fuel impellers for Spitfire fighter planes, and now
makes products for the architectural hardware trade. Tim was born and
brought up in Halfpenny Green next to the airfield but at age 10 his parents
separated. He was taken briefly to Blackpool by his mother but then
returned to Halfpenny Green and his father. For the next 7 years he was a boarder at Tettenhall
College. At that time his uncle John was MD of Buckley’s and his father a part owner, but Tim
had no engineering education so it was decided that he should go to work at Hot Pressed
Products in West Bromwich to learn the latest stamping techniques before joining Buckley's.
With this experience and an HNC in mechanical engineering, he joined his father and uncle at
Buckley's in 1965, and remains there today. His son, Tim junior, joined the firm in the late ’90s
- the fifth generation to work in the family business - and is gradually taking over. Tim was a
keen supporter and eventually a director of Cradley Heath Speedway club but it struggled after
the stadium was sold for development in 1995, so the operating company was wound up in
2004. He maintains an interest in his old school as a committee member of the Old
Tettenhallians’ Club.

520 Gordon SABIN (1928-2019) (Inducted 8.6.1987; left in 1988/89.) Metal Finishing Plant
Manufacturing. He was Managing Director of Autofin Ltd, Oakdale Trading Estate, Ham Lane,
Kingswinford, which produced industrial furnaces and ovens. He started the business as Gordon
Sabin & Associates in 1969 in Bilston and changed the name to Autofin at the end of 1976. He
was also a director of other companies in the Autofin Group. These included Industrial
Separation Systems Limited, manufacturer of metal structures and parts, Casso Solar (Europe)
Limited, specialists in industrial heating, and Electro Film Coatings Limited, which produced
plated and polished metal products, all at Kingswinford; and Glasscoat Limited at Netherton,