Kettering Civic Society
Tony Ireson 1913-2002
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Kettering Civic Society Tony Ireson 1913-2002 |
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Requiem Mass St Edward's Church Kettering A Much Loved Son and Thursday 14th February 2002 |
A Tribute by Paul Ansell Chairman of Kettering Civic Society
"Need you ask so many questions?" I remember the White Rabbit asking Alice. With the curiosity and inquisitiveness of a child came the regular flow of questions from Tony, yet, as behind Alice, was a very intelligent author. I'm sure this curiosity in Tony was something, like his impish charm, he was born with.
His family had been stonemasons and carvers for several generations, and men working with craftsman's skill and natural products-usually stone, was Tony's childhood background. His cousin was Archie Ireson. Having reached 88years, he could look back over a lifetime of change. Being taken as a child by the family horse and cart had been a pleasure particularly if given the chance to hold the reigns. Lately he was a proud Triumph car owner.
As a journalist he would now be an E-mail man. It's not hard to see how this early upbringing developed in him a love of the countryside and carefully crafted buildings set in it. Having been educated locally and worked locally, he never really wanted to leave Kettering even though he spoke with some fondness of India. As a journalist, my link back to Alice, has a more serious side. Tony's questions were always searching for answers, put in an intelligent way, with thought behind them but never a vicious or scandalous edge. Where he considered he might be personally hurtful, he left things unsaid. I like to think this was the Christian side of Tony. In 1954 he wrote his first published book 'Northamptonshire History' which was to become a best seller. With an ear for local phrases and expressions, he picked up and incorporated the way Northamptonshire people were, into his writing. Photographic illustrations were his also.
From the Civic Society, we remember him as a founder member. The Town will remember Tony's Civic Society work in connection with Kettering Town Centre Redevelopment and particularly the saving of Beech Cottage, which now stands as a memorial to him and a reminder to the town of how things were. It is now a Gallery of his father's paintings. All towns grow and evolve and it was the caring side of this evolution of Kettering with which Tony associated himself. It was for his 'Care Quality' that I think everyone respected him.
There was always a sense of humour with what he said and did. During the Build-up to Kettering entering the Redevelopment Epidemic of the 1970's local politicians held meetings to win converts to their cause. At one of these meetings, Tony was to display his impish side.
Chaired by Councillor Barry Chambers, a full meeting, mostly of Politically minded folk, was joined at the back of the audience by Tony and a fellow Civic Society member. Heads turned, people murmured, and the chairman looked pensively and then launched into reasons why Kettering Town Centre should best be Blitzed and rebuilt. Tony proceeded to noisily unzip his briefcase and took out a clipboard and at the top of the sheet of paper wrote a short sentence. In front of Tony sat Alderman Len Smith. Tony tapped his shoulder and passed the clipboard to him. "Sign that please"... Len did and Tony urged with a dramatic whisper "Pass it on..." Gradually the board went round the whole seated audience who one by one signed the petition before it eventually came back to Tony. At this point, the other Civic Society member was able to read the petition, which read... 'SAVE THE WHALES'. The Chairman didn't know what had so broken the concentration of the audience but in a move, which Gatling Fen himself would have been proud of, Tony's impishness was well demonstrated and the meeting deflated.
Tony took early retirement to devote more time to opposing the development of the Newborough Centre, eventually saving Beech Cottage which I guess everyone will now try to save. What an irony.... Arrangements were made during the 70's for his cottage and we wait enthusiastically to learn what Tony had in mind. After Newborough Twin Towers crumbled, Tony devoted much of his time to writing and at the time of his death, he was nearing the completion of his 8th book.
Through all of Tony's investigations and missions he was caringly supported by 'Rene' his devoted wife and always accompanied by their spaniel. It was Rene's enthusiasm for gardening, which gave the grounds of Beech Cottage its charming appearance. As editor of Garden News he no doubt sought other helpful advice and he occasionally made mention of special plants that had come from the Chelsea Flower Show.
Civic matters always remained in his mind and he was a regular behind the scenes, worker and mentor. Lately it was the Civic Society secretary who called on him regularly to bring his thoughts back to our meetings. Tony has left us with memories of a charming intelligent, innocent man whose care for the world around him has left us a model in society to look up to and a conscience to protect and care for what is good. T
The Civic Society and The Town say 'Good Bye' to one of it's GREATEST DEFENDERS.
by Tony Smith
from the Evening Telegraph February 4th 2002
Tributes have been pouring in following the death of veteran author, local historian and heritage campaigner Tony Ireson at the age of 88.
The former Evening Telegraph journalist campaigned against the controversial redevelopment of Kettering town centre in the 1970s and won a personal battle to save his historic home, Beech Cottage, from the bulldozers. He died in the town's general hospital on Friday after a short illness.
He wrote a best-selling book, Old Kettering and Its Defenders, about the bitter fight to preserve some of the town's best-loved old buildings, which were demolished to make way for the Newborough Centre (nom Newlands). He penned a further six books about his beloved home town and was working on a seventh when he died.
Born in April, 1913, he was the son of Christopher Ireson, a monumental mason and well known local landscape artist, whose watercolours adorned the living room of the Tanners Lane cottage, which dated back to the l8th century.
Mr Ireson was educated at Kettering Grammar School, joined the ET as a junior reporter in 1929 and left as special features writer almost 30 years later. He became the paper's most authoritative reporter and acknowledged expert on his native county, researching and compiling the official souvenir marking the ET's Golden Jubilee in 1947.
His newspaper career had been interrupted by the Second World War, when he served as an RAF mechanic in India, and he later wrote what is widely recognised as the definitive book on the history of Northamptonshire as part of the Robert Hale county series.
Published in 1954, all 2,500 copies sold out in just two weeks, to be followed by numerous reprints. After leaving the ET, he ended his working life as editor of the magazine Garden News, but in retirement forged a new career as an author of local history. He was 71 when he published his first book on Kettering - the warts and all - account of the Gold Street redevelopment scheme of the 60s and 70s.
Mr Ireson was a life member of the County Record Society, contributing many articles to its annual magazine Northamptonshire Past and Present, Northamptonshire Life and the Northampton and County Independent. He was also one of the founder members of Kettering Civic Society, formed specifically to fight the borough council's revamp of Gold Street which led to the demolition of the old Post Office buildings and historic Beech House.
Picturesque Beech Cottage, in the grounds of Beech House, goes back to Queen Anne days and became Tony's home in 1941. He remained there after his wife Rene sad death In I961. In I975 he won a protracted battle with town planners who wanted to demolish his home to create a service road to the new multi-storey car park next to the proposed shopping centre.
"I felt under siege," he said. "They tried very hard to get me out with a compulsory purchase order, but after studying the plans in detail, I found they didn't really need it. My lawyers made the most of this and we won the day." Mr Ireson still lost 70ft of his 72ft front garden and his view of the orchard behind, but in later years became resigned to being sandwiched between the Newlands and the more recent Tanners Gate development
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An aerial view of his idyllic home surrounded by concrete featured on page three of
the Daily Mail last summer when he also featured in Saga magazine and Country Life, whose editor Clive
Aslet said in his article: "Mr Ireson is the sort of man that every town should have - he is the keeper of the flame." |
Up to his death he remained tireless in his one-man quest to record as much of Kettering's history as mortality would allow, writing and publishing six volumes in his Old Kettering - A View From The 1930s series of books.
In 1993, Kettering Civic Society presented Mr Ireson with its coveted silver rose bowl for his third volume of town memories and last year his contribution to local history was recognised when University College, Northampton, awarded him an honorary MA degree in history and literature.
Mr Ireson leaves no family, but his selfless humanity and love for his home town and its people will live on for those who were privileged to know him.
Passing of the town's defender ET February 7th 2002
The late Tony Ireson was a highly-respected journalist of the old school, a true gentleman of the press who lived by old-fashioned values of decency, honesty and fair play.
If this humble homage reads like idolatry, it is because this mercurial "man of the people" was my idol. He was also my friend and Kettering shrank a little with his sudden death aged 88 on Friday - still putting the final touches to his eighth book about his beloved birthplace.
He was without doubt the town's greatest ambassador and the best-known journalist in the ET's history. With his indomitable spirit, you thought he was indestructible (we had a long-standing joke that I would cover his 100th birthday!).
He inspired and supported my three pictorial history books on Kettering. A lesser man may have resented this "upstart" moving into his territory but to Tony, it was "all grist to the mill" and we often helped each other with research.
He gladly wrote the foreword to my first book, reviewed my second in the ET and I dedicated my third to him - a gesture he insisted was "undeserved". Typically, when I treated him to dinner at a country pub five years ago (on the pretext of celebrating my second book) he was still thanking me weeks later.
I was then, at 42, exactly half his age but we shared an impish sense of humour (he loved TV's Blackadder and Private Eye magazine) and led spookily parallel lives. Both our fathers died young (his at 41, mine at 44), both of us were Kettering Grammar School boys who went on to work on the ET for 29 years, me for 30), each ending up as feature writers. But here the similarity ended - I was I mere "apprentice", he would always be the "master".
As a cub reporter, Tony helped cover the inquest and funeral of the great Charles Wicksteed, one of his weekly contacts. In his living room is a picture of Tony looking dapper in top hat and tails when he attended the present Queen's wedding in 1947. I always teased him as his front page byline was elevated to the grander "Anthony Ireson" for his despatch from Westminster Abbey!
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Entering his home, Beech
Cottage, was like stepping back in time. His words of wisdom were tapped
out on a cranky I523 Remington typewriter as he listened to his clockwork radio, his more
modern 1950 Imperial kept upstairs for burning the midnight oil. He never really embraced
new technology, once quipping "I may acquire an internet set-up to play with when I
get old." He was both bemused and amused by the media scrum which followed a Daily Mail article on his cottage last summer. For several days he was besieged by TV crews from Anglia, Central and even Sky News but he turned down Breakfast TV as he never got up THAT early for anyone. |
LWT filmed him for the programme Houses From Hell, only to decide at the last minute that his cottage - although surrounded by modern monstrosities - was too beautiful to be included. When they sent him the unedited tapes, he acquired his own "video replay device" (as he called it) although I offered to play them on mine. Needless to say he had no idea how to operate it!
Like many of his generation, he could be stubbornly independent. He never complained if feeling under the weather and said he "thoroughly enjoyed" his spell in hospital over Christmas, 1998, after breaking his hip in a fall. He summoned an anxious cook to his bedside after one meal, only to congratulate her on the much maligned hospital food!
Tony loved, being in the heart of the town, where friends could drop in, and exiled Cytringanians wrote from afar with their reminiscences, which he felt duty bound to put into print. "I don't wish to sound morbid," he told me, "But the Old Reaper is approaching so I've just got to get on with it."
Despite being robbed of his beautiful front garden by the realigned Tanners Lane, he became resigned to his view of the multistorey car park opposite. "If I so wish I can pretend its Hampton Court," he said, "It's the same colour."
Insight into the world of an author
The infirmities of old age never halted Tony's quest to record local history. From his Beech Cottage fortress he enlisted a willing army of helpers, yours truly doing much of the leg-work and research for his final forthcoming book.
I was one of 25 local people who also provided testimonies for a secret (but unsuccessful) campaign to get him an MBE. Maybe the fact that he dared to take on the system and won counted against him.
Every other week we exchanged letters or spoke by phone. I last visited three weeks before his death, to receive his customary grilling over town gossip and the news behind the headlines. More often than not, he knew more about what was going on than I did!
His letters were peppered worth priceless nuggets of nostalgia. After my holiday in Sri Lanka in 1997, he wrote: "Thanks for the Ceylon postcard. When 1 was there 50 years ago, 1 was based on a Dutch ship anchored in the harbour. The Japs were invading the Dutch East Indies, while women and children were being shipped away."
When the Poppies got to Wembley, he recalled visiting the Empire Exhibition there in 1923 on a trip to visit an aunt. "It was like a small town and you could go round it on a 'never-stop' railway, which was driverless and slowed to a crawl at stations."
He even recalled the First World War: 'I remember being wheeled in my pushchair along Rockingham Road and a Special constable warning my mother not to show a light as a Zeppelin was about.
During a rare outing last June, I drove him around Kettering to see all the development of recent years. But he positively purred when the trip also took in the Broadway house where he was born and many of his childhood haunts.
On the day before his death 1 received a thank-you letter for sending material he wanted on a long-gone shoe factory. In a poignant final sentence, he rued: 'Most of my old mates are gone now, but just as vivid in memory as they ever were."