Roger Vernon Abel

I am looking for information about Roger Abel (sportsman supreme!) I was at KHVIII when Roger was in his second time at the school (after emigrating to Australia and then coming back to the UK), my main memory of him was seeing him at our annual sports day with the most outstandingly pretty girl I had ever seen (Vivian Llewellyn). Vivian was a Stoke Park girl and she was a stunner! Years later I met Roger again when I was doing research for my PhD at Leeds U Houldsworth School (good way to avoid National Service!) and Vivian was there too doing Dentistry and Roger doing Metallurgy and myself and my wife to be, Ann Wall, also of Stoke Park, so we saw quite a bit of them. Roger was by this time a really good rugby player (English Schoolboys?), when at Leeds he was a member of the all conquering UAU Rugby team that beat Loughborough to win the trophy (with Ray French, Bev Dovey and Dave Wrench, all future England players!) Roger was also a talented sports racket player excelling at tennis, squash, table tennis and badminton, jai-alai too! His father owned a pub in Coventry (I think). He also had a very good looking girlfriend at the time, Nicky Mancini of Stoke Park. When I left I lost touch with him and never saw him again, and I often wonder what happened to him? Edited by member, 20th Oct 2019 1:32 pm

Hi Dr Phil Just had a quick check on Fred Luckett’s excellent Real Ale Rambles site. 1949-1956, Neville Abel ran The Hawthorn Tree if that was the same one? Prior to that it appears he was landlord at The Pilot on Burnaby Road. Edited by member, 19th Nov 2019 2:50 pm

Hi Dr Phil. I have also found a Neville Abel who was at the Sydenham Palace in Lower Ford Street in 1936. He is on the 1939 census with his wife Alice at the Pilot Hotel, Catesby Road (where we had our wedding reception). He was born in 1898. There was also a Neville Abel who had the licence of "Public Billiards", 180-182 Station Street - transfered in 1938 to Reginald Sherbourne Parrott. In 1954 the daughter of Neville Abel, Hazel Dorothy was married. In 1960 Neville Abel was at the Olde Stag next door to Pargetters in Bishop Street (he was a witness when the post office was broken into). Do any of these places ring any bells, do you have any Christian names or other names I can look at on Ancestry or the newspaper archives? NB This Neville was born in Dewsbury in Yorkshire. Edited by member, 19th Nov 2019 3:10 pm

Sorry Dr Phil, but Neville Ashby was not Roger's father

Hi, excuse my butting in but there is a record for Roger Vernon ABEL on Ancestry with his passing away in Jan 2004. The record shows he was born 1939 in September, and he died in Bristol aged 64. Does this help? There is also a tree and it is published by one Paul Windridge who hails from the Isle of Wight. He is aged around 60 plus, but he hasn't signed in for about three months. Edited by member, 19th Nov 2019 5:48 pm

Yes, that's the person Dr Phil is referring to

Ok MR, thanks.

Paul’s father was Tom Windridge, who I’ve previously referred to on the forum in relation to rugby union His tree shows that Roger’s father was a brother of Neville, mentioned earlier in this thread. Roger had two sisters, one of whom is deceased. Whether the other sister (born 1941) is alive is unknown, and there is no indication of a marriage which could indicate a married name - so that looks like a dead end. I don’t know if the Windridges are/were related to the Abels. Update: Tom Windridge married one of Neville Abel’s daughters

Outstanding M Red! I think we may be on the way to having the full story of Roger's life and achievements. Congratulations and thanks, now we know his full name, is a big step. I look forward to more posts. Dr Phil

Phil I think you must be on your own now on this - I guess things start now to fall into the area of data protection. Your route seems to be to contact Paul Windridge on the Isle of Wight, who as you will have seen has done a lot of research into the family, and is a distant relative of Roger. And you’re in luck - if you Google his name / Isle of Wight, you’ll come across him as an artist, and you should be able to find an address for you to make contact. I’m not sure it would be right for members of this forum to divulge any more personal data not readily available to the public at large, eg Ancestry members, and I think you’ll agree that those who have assisted you this far have set you on a path which could lead you to resolving your query. Good luck

Hi Red You are as ever correct and I understand completely and will comply. Regards Phil

Will respond to you by email, Phil

Hi Red Finally I have got it and sent a short e-mail introducing myself to Paul. I am not thinking too well at the moment and Yahoo gave me information on video artists and foxes when I googled Paul and I could not find an email reference, but this morning I succeeded, thanks very much for your help! PS I am not normally so thick but tired after bike ride and good food maybe has something to do with it (could be Anno Domini). Regards Edited by member, 20th Nov 2019 1:03 pm

Hi everybody who has contributed to this topic, hope you are all well! Since contacting Paul Windridge (Paul was also a scholar at KHVIII and Roger was a first cousin of his) and with some research on my part, and some on Paul's, I think we have worked out what happened to Roger. It's part speculation and part facts and I do not feel that I can post them until I consult Paul again. Many thanks for all your contributions and should any of you find more information on the families and friends involved, please post. To this I have a new name to post. My recent hard thinking (brains are marvellous things and my brother-in-law, Mike Wall's friend at KHVIII, Prof Blakemore continues to enlighten us on the subject!) I was thinking about Roger's rugby career at Leeds Uni when a new name popped into my head, Brian Reade (could be another spelling). Brian was also member of the UAU winning team and he too was a product of KHVIII. Brian played second row and was a big tall lad with a good turn of pace. Maybe somebody in the forum remembers him? The other thing I found out is that the families originally came from Yorkshire - that explains somethings to me! Best Regards Dr Phil

Hi everybody, Dr Phil here I think I may now know more about Roger's life after I lost touch with him after he left for Florida. But I will try to clear up some details about his relatives (courtesy of Paul Windridge). Paul's maternal grandfather was Neville Abel who ran several pubs (including The Hawthorn Tree and The Stag) in Coventry, his brother, John Eric (Dick) Neville was Roger’s father, they had a sister called Val Abel. Paul's father was Thomas Frank Windridge and his father was Tom Windridge. The family were from Dewsbury, Yorks, later moving to the Midlands during the WWI; the sporting gene in the family was strong, both Paul's father and grandfather were pupils at KHVIII as was Paul himself, and both played rugby for Coventry and Warwickshire. Paul was a cross country runner and as has been mentioned in this forum, a good one too. So to sum up, Roger was Paul's first cousin. Roger left Leeds after obtaining his Metallurgy degree (?) I had several years still to go and lost touch completely. I think he went to live in Bristol where his father lived(?). I think in Bristol he resumed his sporting life by playing for Bath (in professional rugby). I think he played only nine times for Bath before emigrating to the States in Sarasota, Florida, maybe in the sixties, where he got married to a girl called Brenda Hudson in 1968. I briefly had contact with him at this time via Brian Reade, I think, when Roger he told me he was doing well and playing a lot of jai-alai. Roger eventually returned to Bristol, but I do not know when. He died in 2004. R.I.P. Edited by member, 23rd Nov 2019 4:41 pm