TRIBUTES have been paid to a “heavy duty worker” who spent more than three decades of his life revolutionising the photography department of The Gazette.
Ron Boshier initially joined this newspaper as a photographer when it was still known as the Hants & Berks Gazette, and his 31-year career saw him become Picture Editor.
Ron passed away on Tuesday (January 12) evening at the age of 95 after contracting Covid-19.
Paying tribute, his youngest son David said: “He was a bit of a charmer. He was very professional and was definitely a family man but his life was The Gazette.
“Whether he was out doing stuff or developing things, he was a Gazette man.
“He enjoyed dancing and teaching, he was mainly a good father and a heavy duty worker.”
After growing up in Lower Brook Street and attending Fairfields Primary School, Ron started his working life with a short stint as a draughtsman at Thornycroft’s, before joining the Army.
In 1949, at the age of 24, Ron joined The Hants & Berks Gazette as a photographer, whilst it was at its old headquarters in Church Street.
He was asked by The Bird brothers – The Gazette’s founders – to start up a photographic department.
According to a newspaper clipping from 1975 – the year this newspaper moved from Church Street to its custom-built offices in Pelton Road – he was “delighted” to start his job, “even when he found there was no darkroom or studio and that he’d have to work in an old converted loo”.
He designed the photographic offices at Church Street and his team had a first-class reputation for competition-winning news pictures.
In an article to mark the move to Pelton Road, Ron said: “We now have the best equipped pictures section in the South of England.”
The photographer covered some of the biggest stories in Basingstoke, including the Queen’s opening of the AA headquarters at Fanum House in 1973, and the time that Muhammad Ali visited a pub in the town.
After working for the Gazette until he retired in 1980, he moved to Chideock in Dorset. But he couldn’t stay out of the game for long, as he was soon helping out at the Bridport Gazette.
Away from work, Ron was a keen dancer, teaching hundreds of people at the RB School of Dance.
His team competed on Come Dancing – the forerunner to today’s Strictly – and competed in the first of the series’ shows broadcast in colour on BBC TV.
“They were of an old-fashioned generation,” David said about his parents.
“Mum didn’t go out to work until both myself and my brother were much older.
“Mum looked after the family and dad earnt the bacon.”
Ron was married to Christine at St Michael’s Church on July 8, 1950. He met Christine, originally from Ramsgate, at a youth club that stood on the site where Brinkletts car park is located today.
As it turned out, that is where David would meet his wife.
Ron and Christine had two children, David and his older brother Jonathan, and had four grandchildren.
The funeral will take place on February 12, at St Michael’s Church. Because of Covid restrictions, it will only be open to invited friends and family.
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