Roger Wilkes died on 16 August 2026.
He was a long serving member of BACAS, joining in 2007.
Roger Wilkes was involved with the Lectures and Excursions sub committee from 2012 until last year when care for his wife Carol made it too difficult to continue. Much of that time he acted as Secretary with the complex task of keeping track of excursion bookings before we went online.
Over the years he arranged many excursions with some memorable trips over the Severn to visit the lost city of Trellech, Monmouth town and the Newport ship. His lecture bookings for the Society were similarly successful and those on the L&E sub committee always knew that his homemade mince pies would be the favourites at the BACAS Christmas lecture!
In 2020, Roger’s work on lectures and excursions was recognised by the award of the society’s Clive Peacock Memorial Award.
Roger was a very good friend of Roger Underhill, who died in May. They lived on the same street for over fifty years and went for regular walks together for about thirty years. To tell them apart, Wilkes was ‘Young Roger’ and Underhill was ‘Old Roger’. Young Roger encouraged Old Roger to join BACAS in 2018 and take on the treasurer’s job.
The funeral will be at Haycombe Cemetery on Friday 4th September at noon. The funeral service will be held in the Haycombe Crematorium which is the lower of the two buildings. If you believe you may attend then, to help the family plan for numbers, please email office@bacas.org.uk.