Obituary: Ronald Chalmers MBE, crofter’s son and Bevin Boy who gained Royal Warrants as Aberdeenshire baker

Crofter’s son Ronald Chalmers was one of the forgotten conscripts, a Bevin Boy, who rose to become baker to the Queen.

Born into hardship in rural Aberdeenshire, he had a tough upbringing during the Depression after his father died when he was a baby. He was then unlucky enough to be one of the young men chosen at random to work down the mines in wartime.

But, with his wife Sheila, he went on to fulfil a dream to own his own bakery, which expanded into a chain across the north-east of Scotland, and was honoured with Royal Warrants from the Queen, Queen Mother and the Prince of Wales.

Their Chalmers Bakery commissions included the Duke of Edinburgh’s 65th birthday cake and he was made an MBE for his services to the craft, yet he maintained he was just “an ordinary working chap”.

The youngest of three and the only boy, he was born on the family croft at Whiterashes, where his widowed mother continued to live off the land, make their clothes and bake the family’s bread.

Growing up, he took his duties seriously as the man of the house and was only seven or eight when he began helping out in the kitchen, chopping vegetables and baking cakes.

After an education at Pennan Primary and Hatton School, he left at the age of 14 and began an apprenticeship at bakers Simmers of Hatton before moving to Newmachar. By this time the Second World War had broken out and many of the country’s experienced coal miners had been called up into the armed forces.

By the middle of 1943 the coal mines had lost 36,000 workers, and the government asked for volunteers. Few came forward and six months later the country was desperate for coal as fuel over the winter and for the war effort.

Minister of Labour Ernest Bevin announced a scheme to conscript young men to do the job and the Bevin Boys were born. They were chosen randomly each week from the National Service numbers of those liable for call-up. Young Chalmers had to abandon his work in the bakery and was sent to the coalmines of Cowdenbeath in Fife.

Although it was undoubtedly a daunting experience, he retained fond memories of his time and remained in contact with the couple who gave him digs and treated him like a son.

The scheme continued to run after victory until 1948, but the Bevin Boys were the unsung heroes and remained so until 1995, when they were finally fully recognised for their contribution to the war.

Meanwhile, Chalmers returned to Newmachar and in 1955 married the young woman he had met through the bakery there.

His wife Sheila was a trainee hairdresser and part-time shop assistant at the bakers, but they both had the same dream of owning their own business.

Chalmers, who played the accordion and had a successful band, Ronnie Chalmers and the Bluebirds, saved everything he made through playing at dances in village halls around the North-east.

In 1956 the couple bought their first premises in Bucksburn, Aberdeen. The music business then had to take a back seat as the firm grew, eventually having branches in Westhill, Fraserburgh, Peterhead, Mintlaw and Banchory.

They also had a business in Ballater, on Deeside, from where they supplied the Royal Family at Balmoral, a pie factory in Aberdeen’s Torry and, for sentimental reasons, bought the Newmachar bakery where they met.

But in the late 1960s Chalmers suffered a serious injury to his left arm during a golf outing when a vehicle in which he was a passenger went into a ditch. His spent three months in hospital, underwent pioneering surgery to take veins from his leg and had skin grafts. Although doctors managed to saved the limb he never regained the use of his arm. However, the severity of the injury did not deter him; he continued to bake and switched from the accordion to an organ, which he played with one hand.

When the Queen Mother inaugurated Shell UK’s Eider and Tern North Sea oil fields in 1989, Chalmers Bakery made the 50lb cake she cut to mark the occasion. It had taken four weeks to create.

The firm also ran its own takeaways and supplied airline caterers, shops and hotels across the North-east. It was in-house baker at the Scottish Co-op’s store in Aberdeen’s Berryden and has the catering contract for the restaurant in the city’s Duthie Park.

Chalmers’ twin daughters, Pamela and Angela, and son John all followed their parents into the business which he led as chief executive, employing more than 300 staff.

He was intensely proud of being a Royal Warrant holder and was Scottish president of the Royal Warrant Holders’ Association.

He was also honoured to have been invited to become a member of the British Confectioners Association and served as its vice-president. He was unable to take over as its president only because he had become deacon convener of the Seven Incorporated Trades of Aberdeen.

In 1997 he was made an MBE and was recently made an honorary member of Dyce Rotary Club.

Away from work, he was a passionate gardener, winning numerous plaudits from Britain in Bloom. He loved vibrant colours, was particularly fond of huge, double-headed begonias and grew a great many of his flowers from seed.

A grafter whose crofting roots left him with an enduring streak of thrift – he hated waste and would rather mend a broken kettle than buy a new one – he loved the business he was in and worked right to the end, believing his achievements had stretched far beyond his dreams.

Predeceased by his grandson Simon, he is survived by his wife Sheila, children Angela, Pamela and John, seven grandchildren, a great granddaughter and his sisters Ann and Betty.

His funeral was taking place this morning.

ALISON SHAW