Roger Doble (born 1944)

Dave Jenks, Society Archivist

Roger Doble was born in Minehead, Somerset in 1944 and attended the Minehead Grammar School from 1955 to 1962. On leaving school he joined Barclays Bank and worked in various capacities until his retirement in 1997. He married Lynne in 1969 and they have two sons, Neil & James and now two grandchildren.

Their home was in Somerset until 1972, when they first moved to Devon, and apart from 4 years in Northamptonshire have lived in the county ever since. The family did however move around a bit, living in Ottery St. Mary, Abbotskerswell, and Cornwood before finally moving to Northam in 1988. When Roger took early retirement in 1997 they decided there was no good reason to move anywhere else.

Roger has had an interest in birds just about as long as he can remember. He can recall watching birds feed in the garden as a small child. Although he retained an interest, he did little birding as such once starting work, moving around quite often and family life precluded him from being able to take it seriously.

He got back into the hobby when they moved to Northamptonshire in the mid ’80s as he lived quite close to Rutland Water, but the whole aspect of birding changed when they moved to Northam, and shortly after bought his first telescope.

His local patch is Northam Burrows, and soon after moving there he was introduced to the DBWPS by Dave Churchill who he met there. He joined the Society in October 1993 and soon became a member of the local Taw/Torridge committee. On the sudden death in 2002 of the Society Treasurer John Kempner, Roger was persuaded to take on this onerous post, which he only relinquished early in 2007. It should be noted he still carried the Society financial responsibilities when becoming Chairman in December 2006. The first man to hold these two posts simultaneously.