THE SON of former Prestbury curate Ron Ottley has paid tribute to a "generous and kind" dad who was always there for his family.

Ron, 77, who lived with his wife Beryl, 74, at Brocklehurst Court, Tytherington, died in Macclesfield Hospital last Saturday, March 11 from pneumonia.

He was well known throughout Prestbury, where he spent 15 years as curate at St Peter's until 1997, when he was forced to retire aged 65, after contracting Parkinson's disease.

Ron, a travel agent, and Beryl, a shop assistant, moved to Tytherington in 1971 with their sons David, now 48, and James, now 44.

He was born in Bury and lived with his parents in Whitefield, where he attended Whitefield Junior School and then Radcliffe Technical College.

At the age of 16 he started working as a clerk in the Railways' goods department and when he was 23 he met Beryl, then 19, who was his friend's sister.

The couple married two years later and Ron started working as a booking clerk for shipping company Royal Mail Line, where he remained until the late Seventies, during which time the company became a travel agency and Ron retrained.

After being made redundant, he started working for a travel agency in Buxton.

Son John, a mortgage adviser who lives with wife Linda, 45, and children Natasha, 15, and Thomas, 13, on Tewkesbury Ave in Tytherington, said: "We moved to Macclesfield a few years before that as dad really liked the town."

Faith was always central to the family's life and when they arrived they began attending St Oswald's Church in Bollington.

John added: "We always went to church as kids." In 1983 Ron decided to train as a curate at St Deiniol's College at Hawarden and started his work in Prestbury, although he still worked full time as a travel agent.

John said: "He did the work in his spare time because he loved it. If he hadn't been diagnosed with Parkinson's he would have stayed on."

Ron's faith obviously rubbed off on his son David, who is now vicar of Goostrey, where he lives with his wife Jill, 47, and children Matthew, nine, and Caitlin, seven.

John added: "He was just a great dad and granddad. His grandchildren loved him and he was always there if you needed him."

  • THE funeral will be held at St Peter's Church in Prestbury this Friday, March 17 at 1pm. It will be followed by a private family burial at Goostrey.