Legendary Neston boatman Ronnie dies at 87

Feb 27 2008 by Staff Reporter, Birkenhead News

WELL-known Wirral boatman Ronnie Evans has died at the age of 87.

A Dee shrimper, Ronnie died in Southampton General Hospital after a long illness

He was one of the last post-World War II generation of Dee shrimpers who provided a source of protein during the food rationing period and the raw material for Parkgate potted shrimps.

Ronnie, his cousins and other Parkgate fishing families plied their boats from successive anchorages on the Wirral shore of the Dee, moving their moorings westward from Heswall to Thurstaston and then to Caldy as the Dee shore progressively silted up.

He had spent his childhood in the family boat yard at Heswall shore. His father Dick began the boat laying-up, building and repair business between the wars and it was continued by older brother Maurice until the 1970s before being taken over by a new proprietor.

Ronnie, like his father and brother, was a skilled boat builder, having served his apprenticeship at Rutherfords yard in Birkenhead.

During the war, he helped construct craft to be used in the D-Day invasion of Normandy. His skills and advice with repair of wooden boats were often called upon.

Ronnie moved from Neston to Penmaenmawr in 1968 and there, in his boat Gulf Wind, he operated fishing trips from Conway Harbour. In 1986 after his wife Joan died, he and his daughter Hilary moved to Beaumaris in Anglesey where he was often to be seen on and off the water with his beloved Bedlington terrier Horace.

Hilary died in 2003 and in 2007 ill-health prompted Ronnie's move to live with son Richard and daughter-in-law Ann in Southampton. He is survived by two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.