Leonard John Bailey

“You will stay with us in our dreams.”

John sadly passed away on 7th February in the care of Ward 19 at Leighton Hospital, aged 85 years.

John will be dearly missed but lovingly remembered by all who knew him.

A service to celebrate John’s life will take place at Crewe Cemetery Chapel on Friday 5th March followed by interment in Crewe Cemetery.

John was born in Tunstall, Stoke on Trent in 1936 when Stanley Baldwin was Prime Minister.  John’s daughter Alison was born in 1968 and Philip was adopted in 1969.  John had a brother, Claude who was a welder on the railway and he also had two children Janet and Duncan.  Claude sadly died from cancer in the early 1980’s.

After John left school, he trained to be a bricklayer and stonemason working for Horace Hoskins from Tunstall.  In the 1950’s when bricks were scarce, he used a month’s supply of bricks in a week and got the sack because there were no more materials left for the builders to use.

He had a good eye for building and excellent work ethics, he could easily lay a thousand bricks per day.  His hard work led to him becoming a foreman for Costains – in charge of the construction of the Royal Institute in Hanley.  In no time at all, he also built houses in areas such as Whitmore Heath.

In the 1970’s he built a pair of semi-detached bungalows in two weeks.  He did a lot of work for Roy Beech Contractors of North Street in Stoke and built the gate posts and walls of Audley Water Works when the road was widened.

As well as working hard in the building trade, John had a passion for gardening.  In the early 1980’s John was asked to tidy up the fields for Bridgemere Nurseries.

He took on the responsibility of all the building work and maintenance and built the new café.

In 1989, along with Philip and Sue Thompson from Bridgemere, they went to the Chelsea flower show to create ‘The Country Women’s Garden’, which was a façade of a cottage and a garden.  It was such a brilliant piece; the efforts were well rewarded by a Gold Medal and the accolade of best in show.  Quite rightly, John was incredibly proud of this well-deserved achievement.

He showed at Chelsea twice more, one time building a folly garden, an impressive replica of Mow Cop Castle and the carefully crafted gardens are still in pride of place at Bridgemere.

After so many achievements, John left Bridgemere in the mid-nineties to focus on starting and developing his own garden construction business.  Over his lifetime, John was a real animal lover having bred with his rottweiler dog Sable and he couldn’t resist keeping one of the pups, Seth.

John was an incredibly tenacious man, he continued to work very hard during his life.  He even made a fireplace out of some old stone steps in the garden and had a unique idea of building stone fireplaces with fish tanks in.  John never settled for second best, if he did a job it would be absolutely perfect.

Over the years he always liked a nice car.  He had many Rovers and a Daimler Sovereign which was his pride and joy.  He liked to go to Wales, especially Llanberis.  In his retirement he did a lot of fishing.  John remained active all his life, even in his spare time he was never still, he joined the Freemasons in the seventies and made many friends.

He even rebuilt the family house and they lived in a caravan whilst he was doing it up.  How wonderful that everything John built will be enjoyed by many people for years to come.  A brilliant testament to his talent, skill, creativeness and dedication to quality ensuring that his work will remain standing when many are long gone.