Island Life August/September 2018

Interview
“You could say it was
a baptism of fire!
It means I can file
with my eyes shut
now – and I never
save up filing for
anyone else to do.”
Ron at Walk the
Wight 2018
for the business” Ron recalls.
However, the following year, after the
wife of one of the company managers
died at the hospice, it was decided
to repeat the walk as a sponsored
fundraiser for the hospice and the
hospital scanner appeal, and on that
occasion, over 100 walkers took part.
Within a year, an MRI scanner had been
purchased - but by then, Walk the Wight
was effectively established as an annual
event, and is now offcially recognised as
the largest sponsored walk in Europe, with
up to 8,500 people pounding the route.
Recalling the early days when he was
one of the volunteers manning the
checkpoints, Ron says: “There were just a
few of us who used to drive around like
idiots to greet the walkers at the next
point! You couldn’t do that nowadays – in
fact we now have about 250 marshals
stationed throughout the course.”
The growth of the event is a source
of great pride to him and many others
on the Island, so it’s hardly surprising
that he intends to stay actively involved
with it – and other voluntary work
- after his retirement next year.
A passion for life
Never a ‘half measures’ type of
character, Ron has always been known
for enthusiastically throwing himself
into whatever he set his mind to. The
only child of Cowes boat builder Bill
and Nottinghamshire-born accounts
clerk mother Edna, he enjoyed a typical
rough and tumble childhood of Scout
camps, helping on a milk round with the
dad of a school pal, playing football in
the street (and later for Northwood FC
under the legendary Harry Cheek), and
supporting Nottingham Forest FC out
of loyalty to his mum’s home county.
He left the old Cowes Secondary Modern
School at 16 with no great academic
aspirations, but with “a love of numbers
and a logical brain” for which he reckoned
offce work would be a good fit – and a
solid work ethic inherited from his dad.
He successfully applied for a commercial
apprenticeship at the West Cowes
shipbuilding firm J. Samuel White and on
his first day, recalls being faced with three
desks piled high with purchase invoices.
“There was three months’ worth
of it to do, but it didn’t put me off”
recalls Ron. “You could say it was a
baptism of fire! It means I can file
with my eyes shut now – and I never
save up filing for anyone else to do”.
Within a few weeks of starting work,
the iconic Isle of Wight Festival of
1970 took the Island by storm with its
50-strong line-up that included The
Who, Jimi Hendrix, and The Moody Blues
– and for the 16 year-old Ron, it was
excitement like he’d never dreamed of.
“I just have a memory of there being
people everywhere. An older friend
of mine had a Mini van so about six
of us piled in and off we went. We
had no tickets but then there was very
little in the way of fences! The stage
seemed miles away but who cared?
This was our Island and everyone was
enjoying it. It was a completely different
world that we’d never seen before.”
However, there was trouble waiting
for Ron when he rolled home at
dawn – his worried father had been
out looking for him and promptly
grounded him for two weeks.
Cowes Week was another big source
of excitement for the young Ron and his
pals, and the year after the Festival, he
recalls the whole of Cowes ‘coming alive’.
“It was not the big corporate event it
is nowadays – Cowes Week somehow
felt more colourful and more exciting
back then, when you could see Brittania
with her guardship plus visiting
boats from many other Navies.
“A friend of mine had the use of an
inflatable for the week, and on one
occasion we went alongside an American
frigate and were invited on! Access was
by the scramble nets over the port side,
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