As a family we are so sad to announce the death of JOHN ROBIN RODWELL at the Diana, Princess of Wales Hospital, Grimsby on 23rd March 2024.

John (known to family as Rob) was born to Walter & Dorothy Rodwell on 29th July 1941. The family resided in Baytree Avenue Grimsby with John’s older brother Peter, before moving to their forever home at Sunnyside, Ings Lane, North Cotes.
While growing up John attended St James School, Yarborough Road School & Armstrong Street School, all in Grimsby, where he told us stories of receiving the cane every single day of his school life. There was actually one day where he managed to avoid it and was just making his way out of the school gates when the headmaster called him back. Fearing the worst, he turned on his heels and ran. The next day it transpired that the head had simply wanted him to post a letter for him but his actions saw him get the cane twice that day.

Following this he attended Grimsby College & Silver Street Art School. This was where he crossed paths with the actor John Hurt, whose art he was far from impressed with. Lucky for him he obviously had better acting skills than in art. He would often recall the time John Hurt had something out of turn to him so he was duly bundled into a large sack and rolled down the stone stairs at Art School. There's a claim to fame!

The family holidayed at the Fitties camp in Cleethorpes & for John’s first job as a teenager, he was able to pursue his fascination for flying, by working on the beach with Auster aircraft giving pleasure flights where at the the end of the working day he would often fly the plane back to Holton Le Clay aerodrome. He also spent some time getting to grips with flying a Tiger Moth.

Having met Jenny Tyson at college, the couple married at St Michael’s Church Little Coates on 2nd October 1965. The happy couple became parents in 1968 when Clare was born, followed by Sean in 1971. Their first house, they had built in Main Street Grainthorpe, which John would often recall cost them £3330 to build. Unbelievable in these modern times. This was followed by a new build in Grainsby Avenue, Holton le Clay before moving into Knoll Street, Cleethorpes.

After working for the family builder’s merchants business, John started work at Ross Foods where he worked his way up the ladder to become Transport Manager. Following this his love for the sea was calling & he bought a fishing boat, GY272 Better Hope, which he fished out of Grimsby for several years.

In the mid 70’s, John & Jenny’s passion for antiques lead them to bite the bullet & open their first shop in Cambridge Street Cleethorpes which was a one minute walk from their family home in Knoll Street. This was followed by a shop in Brighton Street, Cleethorpes & regular fortnightly visits to Bermondsey Market, Portobello Road Market & Brick Lane. This was when John seriously revisited his art skills & his amazing talent for model making, delivering handmade ship models which were snapped up by international buyers. Some of his favourite memories are waking up in the driver seat of his car at 4am in South London with a crowd of people eager to get to his creations in the back of his trusted Volvo estate.

John’s many hobbies included sports cars, owning cars such as a Lotus 7, TVR, frog eyed Sprite & his precious red Porsche 944.

His unbelievable knowledge of aircraft & passion for flying rubbed off on both his son Sean & grandson’s Lewis & Hunter. He would often paint pictures of his beloved aircraft and one such painting of the English Electric Lightning was presented to the Squadron Leader of 5 Squadron at RAF Binbrook. So impressed with the painting, John was offered the trip of a lifetime to fly in the Lightning but sadly, days before his flight, the only twin seat Lightning available had to do an emergency landing as was damaged beyond repair. This passion also lead to him doing a charity parachute jump, which he enjoyed so much. Shooting & collecting guns were also a huge part of his life.

John’s beloved granddaughter Harriet has been lucky to inherit her grandad’s artistic gene & maybe not so lucky to have inherited his ‘say it how it is’ gene,  although he was so so very proud of her for both of these. 

Family holidays were taken in either Whitby, North Yorkshire, where he loved to spend time & also on the canals which lead him to buy his own narrowboat. For John a holiday was never just a holiday & usually became a antiques buying trip. I recall not being able to take a shower on our narrow boat holiday as he had filled the cubicle with antiques.

A keen nature and bird lover, Johns first job when moving into a new home would'nt be to redecorate but to get in the garden and build a pond and install bird feeders and he would happily spend many an hour tending to it and watching his beloved newts and frogs busy themselves whilst the wildlife buzzed around him. He even befriended a fox who would make it's daily visits to the backdoor to be fed and soon found the courage to come into the house and sleep on the sofa.

On the subject of wildlife, another of Johns proud memories was aquiring a stuffed red squirrel in a house clearance and placing it in the trees opposite the house in Knoll Street, which was also home to the Cleethorpes Council offices. One of the council workers spotted the 'frozen' creature supposedly hanging on for dear life and immediately took pity, climbed the tree and rescued it. It was whisked into the offices to hopefully be revived by placing it on the radiator despite some rather large wires sticking out of each paw but despite their best efforts 'poor old red' never came to.

After closing their own antique shops, the business moved to antique centres in Horncastle & then to Hemswell, where they still run their business to the present day. As well as this, John discovered a specialised skill of Scrimshaw which has kept him busy & out of mischief right up to his sad passing.

For me I find it so incredibly sad that just like that all these unbelievable talents & his phenomenal knowledge are gone & lost in an instant.

It was this talent and knowledge, mixed with a wicked sense of humour that saw John create a huge network of friends in the antique business and I know he will be sadly missed by many a dealer across the country.

John leaves behind his loving wife of nearly 60 years Jenny, daughter Clare, son Sean, son in law Andy, daughter in law Sam, 3 grandchildren Lewis, Harriet & Hunter & 2 great grandchildren Fred & Walter. He will be so sadly missed by us all.
His wishes were to have no formal attended funeral, so we will be saying goodbye & celebrating his life in our own way but instead we are collecting donations for the RNLI charity.

Please follow the link if you would like to donate & please tell us your memories of this much loved amazing man.