My father, Tony Bracegirdle, who has died aged 83, was a successful amateur rose grower and exhibitor. He won the Royal National Rose Society open championship in 1996 and 17 more times over the next 20 years.
His love of roses began in 1965 when he saw “Ena Harkness” in bloom in the garden of his new wife’s childhood home. He said it was the most beautiful thing he had seen, and from that moment wanted to be a rose grower.
He started breeding roses in 1974, helped by his friend and mentor Wilf Taylor. Successes came with the floribunda “Nikki” in 1983, winner of the Torridge award for best amateur rose. Roses are often named after people, in this case, his first grandchild was named after the rose.
With 2,000 rose bushes, he raised an abundance of beautiful seedlings including Lancashire Glory, Holcombe Honey, Peel Brow Gold, Summerseat Son, Little Emily, Florence Favour, and Alice, after his wife. Some went on to be sold commercially including Radio Lancashire, Thora Hird, Sir Harry (after Harry Secombe) and Help the Aged.
He became a committee member, shows chair and rose society judge nationally and internationally. He wrote a weekly column in Garden News and featured in other media. Reviewing an edition of Gardener’s World in 2006, Nancy Banks-Smith described Tony as having “all the breezy ebullience of Fred Dibnah: comfy with the camera, pleased with himself and thrilled to share his skill. Arty-farty he is not.”
Born in Summerseat, a village in Lancashire, he was the son of Edith (nee Sanderson), a factory worker in the cotton mill, and James Bracegirdle, a joiner.
Leaving Peel Brow secondary school, Ramsbottom, aged 15, Tony found work as a farm labourer. He later worked at GL Headle, an electrical wholesaler in Bury, initially as a sales rep, later becoming branch manager. He stayed there all his working life, from 1961 to 2002, when he retired.
He was at school with Alice Barlow, but they met up again in 1962 at a dance at Ramsbottom Liberal Club, and married two years later.
Tony had the ability to hold people transfixed by his infectious enthusiasm and gave many talks in the UK and overseas, and pruning demonstrations for the Royal National Rose Society at Bone Hill, St Albans.
His long-held ambition was to breed a rose with a “hand-painted” yellow petal – yellow with coloured markings – which no one had yet achieved. After 10 years, he succeeded, calling it Tony’s Perfection. A perfectionist does not use the word lightly.
Alice died in 2024. He is survived by his daughters, Pamela, Audrey and me, seven grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
