Published at 15:44, Wednesday, 09 June 2010

ISAAC Dixon was killed at Carleton Wood, just outside Egremont, on one of his regular country walks.

Victim 6: Isaac Dixon

Essentially a shy person, Ike (“Spike”) Dixon, 65, was known and popular throughout the town and surrounding areas, especially in the farming communities.

With a great love of the countryside, an inveterate walker, Spike was known not only as “the mole catcher”, doing a service to many of the local farmers, but also as a gentleman who went out of his way to help people.

Mr Dixon was vice president of Egremont Conservative Club where the flag has been flying at half mast.

One of his Beck Green, Egremont, neighbours, Joan Ferguson,64, said: “He helped everybody, he was that kind of person. A gentleman.”

Another said: “He was special to me. He was special to everyone around here.”

Relatives issued a statement saying: “Spike will be sadly missed by his partner of four years, Pat Shaw, his sons, Martin and Wayne, his six grandchildren, sisters Margaret and Jean, and surviving brother Thomas, ‘Tuc’.”

For many of the Egremont farmers Spike was a God-send, a man who would rid the fields of moles because they “contaminated the soil and damaged machinery”. Being a “mowdy” catcher came naturally to a lad who grew up working on his father’s farm near Sellafield.

His sister, Margaret Earl, 72, said: “As children we just played among the fields and helped out on the farm with the cows, pigs and hens. There was this fella who would come round all the farms and he would line the mole carcasses up on the wire fence so we knew how much to pay him.”

For Spike himself it was £1 a mole – but on behalf of the service for Egremont Cemetery he refused to charge.

After leaving school at 15, Spike worked on farms before becoming a county council road worker where he met Derrick Bird. Later they worked at Sellafield around the same time, Spike putting in 31 years on the site as a process worker.

Another friend, Shirley Wilson, said: “The phrase I keep hearing about Spike is ‘he was a great help’. He was a modest, selfless man who spent a lot of his time doing things for other people.

“Spike no longer kept dogs of his own but regularly walked other people’s pets, especially Ellie the Border Collie.

“He was delighted to have met Pat and was very proud of the £1,000 they raised at a charity night held in Egremont Cons Club for Help the Heroes.”

Pat’s grandson being a serving soldier just returned from Afghanistan.

Cons club chairman Ned Doran said: “Spike would stand on the door and take entrance fees on big nights, wash windows or clean the tables. He’d do anything to help.”

Pat described him as a “warm and funny man”.

A funeral service for Mr Dixon will be held at St Mary’s and St Michael’s Parish Church, Egremont at 2.30pm on Tuesday, June 15, followed by cremation at Distington Hall. Donations in his memory can be made to Help the Heroes, c/o Adams, Read & Hocking, Ennerdale Road, Cleator Moor.

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk