MORE than 60 years after he helped repair Evesham’s Bell Tower the family of stonemason Charles Keitley have remembered when he hit the headlines.

In 1970 the Journal reported the retirement of Mr Keitley, who was well known for his stone skills across the area.

There was few finer testimonials to his skill than the Bell Tower, which in 1951 needed the care of the Windsor Road resident.

Mr Keitley took to the tower to repair the pinnacles, which were crumbling through the corrosion of the iron cramps that they were set on. When he retired aged 73 he had spent about 60 years fashioning stone and was from a family of stonemasons.

He said his job was a dying craft. “So called stonework today is nearly all this reconstructed stone which comes already shaped and cut to size and has only to be laid like bricks.

“There is no skill these days.

That’s why it is a dying trade.”