HRH The Countess of Wessex will unveil a plaque in the new Ray Williams Marquee on Thursday 2nd June at 14:35. The plaque commemorates the life of Ray Williams. The new marquee is adjoined to the Orchards & Cider pavilion. Also present on this day will be Ray’s wife, their two daughters and a number of their offspring.
At the age of 7 Ray moved to Longhope in Gloucestershire to live with his grandmother. Orchards were abundant. Some with ancient pear trees which bore the fruit of small astringent pears used in the making of perry.
The young Ray Williams won the heart of a local farmer’s daughter, Jean Cameron. They would cycle for miles around the forest of Dean. He left school at 18 and joined the RAF. He was sent to Canada to train as a navigator. The war drew to a close and he moved back but this time as a Bevan boy in the coal mines at Cannock Chase.
Later he went to Bristol University to gain a degree in Botany and he went on to work for year in the university’s botanical gardens all the time studying for a diploma in horticulture. At this time, whilst on holiday in Aberdeenshire he found a grass that had not been identified and it was subsequently named after him.
In 1952 he joined the National Fruit and Cider institute at Long Ashton. Here he was to become a cider pomologist. The following year he and Jean were married.
Ray’s knowledge was of pollination and fruit setting. This process was made all the more difficult in the exposed commercial orchards on which he had to advise because they were not as close together for the bees as in a garden. As a result of his studies he surmised that bees were the best pollinators but their flight pattern had shown that they worked more effectively if cross pollination trees were scattered throughout the main orchard crop and not as was then the custom, concentrated in rows.
Ray’s expertise has led him to lecturing in Israel, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, France and North America. Here he would also give practical help. Sometimes these trips included his wife Jean and their three children, all of whom would help by picking off petals from the blossom before the pollen was shaken out and stored ready to be taken abroad.
Ray helped to create new Orchards for the Showerings after their success with the new perry drink, Babycham. He had to identify the old trees correctly. This was a difficult task as no proper study had been done for 70 years. This then led on to him producing a book with photographs and fruit descriptions, which in turn was used by a farmer and fellow fruit enthusiast, Charles Martell. He went onto set up the first national collection of perry pears at the Three Counties Showground at Malvern. Bulmers also called on Ray for his expertise on producing new orchards, as their popularity in cider production grew. A new cider apple was named Willy, the affectionate nickname by which Ray Williams was known.
In 1981 the Royal Horticultural Society awarded Ray the Jones Bateman Cup for his original research in fruit growing.
In 1989 he retired from Long Ashton research station to run his own consultancy, advising large and small growers. In his spare time he enjoyed trekking and camping in mountainous regions including the Himalayas.