My dad, Roy Rhodes, who has died aged 76, started his working life as a printer, but was later able to make a move into conservation work, first at a reservoir in Bolton and then looking after much of the land owned by the water company United Utilities, across an area that stretched from Carlisle to Crewe.
Roy was born in Bredbury, Cheshire, the son of Eddie Rhodes, a confectioner, and his wife, Mary (nee Gorman), and lived there until the family moved to Lancashire when he was seven, after Eddie became manager of Sovereign Toffees in Lowton. Roy went to Leigh grammar school, where he turned every English assignment into a birdwatching story and ducked out of cross-country runs to drink tea at a mate’s house, rejoining the stragglers on the final lap.
