Extraordinary lives
MY GREAT-UNCLE RON
RON was born in Brixton, South London, to a young mother and policeman father who were unable to care for him, so at the age of eight he was sent to a Barnardo’s children’s home.
At the age of 14, he took up the position as junior footman at Highclere Castle in Hampshire, where the hit TV series Downton Abbey was later filmed. He liked the job — perhaps being a Barnardo’s boy gave him a good grounding for the regimented life. A few years ago, the castle’s archivists interviewed him about his experiences as he was the last surviving member of its pre-war staff. He was always positive about his work below stairs, which he never considered demeaning. The teenage Ron was called up in 1940 and served in North Africa with Montgomery’s Eighth Army. They fought their way up from Africa to Sicily and into mainland Italy. He was close to the hilltop monastery of Monte Cassino when it was bombarded during assaults on the Axis lines in 1944.
After the war, Ron never again left Britain. He said he’d done all the travelling he wanted while in the Army. He returned to work as a footman/butler at a posh gentleman’s club in London’s Mayfair. In 1950, he married Rene
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White, who had been the matron at his Barnardo’s home. He was 29 and she was a decade older.
They had been close while he was growing up and stayed in touch. Meeting up again after the war, romance blossomed. They established a seaside guesthouse in Dawlish, Devon. As both were used to looking after people, the business suited them well.
In the mid-1970s, they moved to a smallholding in Newton Abbot, where Ron grew his own vegetables, worked as a gardener and as a hospital porter, and organised teams of labourers to harvest swedes for local farmers. Though diminutive, he was tough and fit well into his 80s. Rene died in 1994 and a few years later Ron moved to Bovey Tracey, near Dartmoor. I visited him in his mobile home, where everything was always spotless and in perfect order, a miniature Highclere! He was a fantastic host, waiting on his guests as if he were still a footman. Once, he visited my flat in London and told me it was a mess and I had to clean it up. He went out and returned with a box of Brillo pads. I still have them somewhere . . . Ron and Rene didn’t have children of their own, and were devoted to their three nephews, niece, ten greatnephews and great-nieces and six in the great-great generation. Rene’s sister Ada was my grandmother. My great-uncle was an endearing and colourful character. He remained independent and lived alone, with much loving family support, until just weeks before he passed away. We all loved him, as did everyone who was fortunate enough to know him.
n RONALD WILLIAM JEARY, born April 9, 1923; died June 18, 2022, aged 99.