It is with much regret that I record the death of John Reece who joined the AGW in 1984.
John, who died at home in March, 2004 was aged 88 and had spent almost 70 years writing about golf. He had been a member of the Association for 20 years. Earlier in the year, John phoned to say how much he and Peggy had enjoyed the Christmas Hamper, which had been saved until he came out of hospital.
Peter Godsiff provided this tribute:
John had a remarkable career and he continued contributing his weekly column to the Western Daily Press until a year ago when ill health forced him to step down. He was born in Bristol but the family moved to Durham in 1919 and he only returned to his birthplace after the war. He was chief sub-editor of the Western Daily Press until he retired in 1981 to devote more time to golf writing. He worked for the English Golf Union, Professional Golfers’ Association, as well as a string of national and local newspapers.
John also reached high standards as a player and retained a single-figure handicap for more than 50 years. But for the war, many felt he would have been capped by England. He played county golf for Durham for seven years off a handicap of one.
He was the son and grandson of journalists. His father Val was an editor in Bristol in the early1900s before he moved to Durham as editor of the Durham Advertiser series for the following 20 years until the war. His brother was chief sub editor of the Evening Chronicle in Manchester.
John first played at Durham City before becoming a country member at Brancepeth Castle. He played for the county colt’s side and enjoyed the company of professionals. “I would pay them £1 from my pocket money to have a round with them,” he said. “I never wanted to be a professional but I would have loved to have played for England.”
He first walked onto a golf course in 1921 with a cut-down piece of hickory with a leather grip and polished head. “It was a wonderful way to grow up,” he recalled. He wrote his first golf story for a sports agency in Manchester when he was 16. He reported Brancepeth Castle professional Charlie Gadd’s win in the Northern Open on his home course.
“The headline was ‘Good Gadd’, I was paid five shillings and I was still at school,” he related. His early golfing influence was Bobby Jones and when he left school in 1932 he became a general reporter for the Northern Echo in Darlington although he was able to report on golf. He also spent much time on the professional tournament circuit writing about the game he loved.
He was sent to the Middle East with the Royal Signals in 1941 and was attached to the Indian Army. Two years later he was commissioned as a lieutenant. He was promoted to captain two weeks before demobilisation.
He used to visit his brother in Manchester and after the war was introduced to the Chronicle’s editor who said he was seeking a golf correspondent. But John resisted as his ambition was return to the West Country. He joined the Bristol Evening Post as a sports reporter but could not settle. So he walked across the city to the Western Daily Press where he stayed from 1948-1981.
He became a member of Henbury Golf Club where he met Peggy Millington, his future wife. He was devoted to Peggy and was proud of her notable success in women’s golf. She captained England in 1966, reached the final of the English Amateur, won all the competitions in the South West and was elected president of the English Ladies Golf Association in 1996.
But his life was turned upside down a year later when Peggy suffered multiple injuries in a car accident near their home as she was returning from an ELGA tournament at Saunton. She spent weeks in intensive care but, miraculously after almost six months in the Bristol Royal Infirmary and Frenchay Hospital, she recovered.
Knee problems restricted his own golf in recent years. He spent several weeks at Weston-super-Mare hospital suffering from respiratory difficulties early this year.
He died on Saturday March 20 at his cottage home in Redhill, near Bristol, where he had lived for more than 30 years. Their son Simon was an Oxford blue for boxing. He became housemaster at School House, Clifton College.
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