We are sad to report the passing of Ken Day, the saviour and President Emeritus of the Alvis Owner Club, official historian of the Alvis company and passionate researcher into the life of T G John.
Ken’s own account of his Alvis life can be found in The K R Day Archive
The AOC obituary can be found here.
Several other tributes have been left as comments and if you wish to add your own, please do so below in the Reply Box.
Alvis Archive 
On behalf of myself and the Alvis Car Club of NSW Australia, I extend our sympathies to Ken’s family. His knowledge and experiences gone but not forgotten.
BRUCE CUNNINGHAM
PRESIDENT
So Sad to see him go-he was a trendous help in assembling the Club History and also in raising the profile of the Alvis Car in Classic and Vintage Cars. He was a remarkable man – his longevity and Alvis books says it all.
I am pleased to see the good response from our club to the sad news of the passing of our President Emeritus Ken Day without whom the club would have failed in its early days.
It is a pity that he did not quite achieve his 100 birthday but he reached a great age and it was good to read articles from him in the Bulletin recently.
I first met Ken in 1971 when ,after joining the club, I attended the AGM to find out about the Council and hear what was said, It was clear that Ken as President was very much in charge and had an immense knowledge of Alvis matters. I did not imagine then that I would really get to know him but over the years that changed and I had the privilege of knowing him and his dear wife Sheila as good friends.
During my time as President the club received an invitation for four people to attend a garden party at Buckingham Palace for groups of which Her Majesty or the Duke of Edinburgh were Patrons. I quickly decided that the couple whom I should invite to join Jean and I were Ken and Sheila Day who were very pleased to accept and immediately invited us to stay with the before and after the big day, we were therefore able to a nice time with them both.
It is sad to know that Ken is no longer with us but for the AOC and many of us our lives have been so much better for knowing him. Rest in peace my friend.
Ken Day’s long life spanned the history of the Alvis marque. His magnum opus, “Alvis the Story of the Red Triangle” which ran to four editions over twenty seven years, was and remains the seminal work on the company, its history and its products. Ken was Mr. Alvis, a founding member of the AOC and a great supporter of the Club, always ready to share his knowledge with fellow enthusiasts.
We, in far away Australia, are grateful for Ken’s enormous contribution to keeping the Alvis name alive for generations of owners.
Vale Ken Day – a life well lived.
Alvis Car Club of Victoria.
With Ken, it was not just the cars, the aspect that most of us prioritise on, it was always ‘ The Company’ , the contractor involved with products assisting the defence of the realm by air, land and sea, where the charismatic cars constituted but a fraction of the turnover.
Telephone calls from Ken, usually on a weekly basis right up to his demise, encompassed every area of Works History, and Club business. Ever lucid, and inquisitive for facts, Ken’s latest priority was evidently that of the thus far insufficiently researched period of T.G. John’s employment at Vickers, at Barrow-in-Furness with the M1 submarine project, just prior to the significant promotion to Coventry. Had not lockdown intervened, I was about to visit that northern town in order to follow up a likely lead in this regard.
These valued ( and usually lengthy ) telephone conversations were often interspersed with most erudite asides, notably about such influences upon international banking of momentous events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the secession from Hong Kong. If only Ken had turned his hand also to write a book about such aspects of his chosen career, what a scoop, not to mention bible for would-be bankers this might have been.
Never one to suffer fools gladly, and always rightly so, we thus all owe it to Ken that his intellectual legacy, and quest for procedural correctness is never forgotten, to remain a bench-mark for us beyond his personal centenary year, and that of ‘The Company ‘, which was so dear to him.
Dave Culshaw
Thank you, Ken for your life, for your encouragement when I was a new boy in the eighties and for the depth of your knowledge about the Company ever since.
Please find my interview with Ken Day on “The history of the first Alvis books” at the following link: https://alvisarchive.com/the-k-r-day-archive/the-history-of-the-first-alvis-books/