Island Life August/September 2018

Interview
Ron’s boots
are made
for walking
After a long and productive working life, the Branch Director for
Jewson’s Isle of Wight stores, Ron Bowler, will be retiring from the day
job next year – but it’s unlikely to be a ‘pipe and slippers’ retirement
for this dedicated charity fundraiser. As he tells Jackie McCarrick, it
will just free up even more of his time to throw into his pet project
of the past 28 years, the now world-famous Walk the Wight.
It attracts thousands of people
every year to walk across the Isle
of Wight countryside and since
1991, has raised an incredible
£4.5 million to support the work
of Earl Mountbatten Hospice,
but few people know the
humble beginnings of what has
become an iconic Island event.
Ron Bowler, however,
remembers it distinctly.
At the time, he was admin
manager of the old-established
Island timber business Morey’s,
where the yard manager Bill
Bradley and colleague Frank
Stevens had been running
informal weekend walks for staff.
It was in 1991 that they decided
to organise walk from east to
west of the Island, Bembridge
to Alum Bay, and Ron agreed
to help marshal the event.
“On that first walk we
had 35 people, all Morey’s
employees plus some friends
and relatives, and it was done
really just as a bonding exercise
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