President, Patrick Nobes writes of his friend and contemporary...



Ditchburn followed his father into Price’s, joining 3A in 1944. In the 6th form he became House Captain of Westbury, and Head Boy of the School. He was a fine medium-fast in-swing bowler and won his 1 XI colours and became vice-captain of the XI. He was also awarded his colours as the 1st XI goalkeeper, with reactions “as fast as a cat’s” as one opposing forward put it. For many years, while he was able, he was a keen supporter of the Society of Old Priceans.

After A-levels he went on to Southampton University where he was forced into a general degree course. (He would have enjoyed, very successfully, a degree course in classics or geography.) Finding neither the course nor the accommodation desirable, he decided to get his two years National Service out of the way, and went into the RAF - following his father once more. He was posted to St Eval in Cornwall, where his total reliability, and good mathematical/geographical brain led to his becoming a first-class Air Traffic Controller, and he was asked to stay on and apply for a commission at the end of his two years NS. Instead, he went into Customs and Excise. After a spell in Southampton he was posted to Northern Ireland, where he met Rose-Marie, and they were married in Fareham. They had two daughters, Julie and Lorna, who have given him three grandsons.

Successive promotions took him to the Excise Offices in Portsmouth and Bedford, back to N.Ireland and finally to Northolt. Sadly, his wife died of cancer in1987, and Roger, very deeply affected by her death, retired.

Two years later he met and married Rosemary. They enjoyed a happy marriage for thirty years. They travelled the world, and while at home in Chickerell, Roger won many awards playing bridge, which he had learned while off-duty at St Eval. He kept in touch with old school and Water Guard friends. When cancer struck for a second time and Rosemary was diagnosed with an incurable blood disease he was devastated and never recovered his old self again. He spent his final years comfortably placed in a care home near his daughters in Chesham. At 2 am on New Year’s day, a French fortnight short of his 93rd birthday, with family sitting by him, he fell into a peaceful sleep from which he never awoke.

He was a highly intelligent, honest, loyal, entirely dependable man, and a caring, generous and much-loved family elder who will be sorely missed by his relatives and friends.