by Emma Grove

A devoted family man who everyone loved – that’s how the wife and daughter of a well-known businessmen who died last week have described him.

Alan Dawney passed away at Medway Maritime Hospital on September 12 – days after being told the pancreatic and liver cancer he had recently been diagnosed with was terminal.

The 59-year-old was best known for the coach company he ran on the Island but he will also be remembered for his time as a milkman and for Dawney’s sweet shop in Meyrick Road, Sheerness.

He moved to Sheppey with his parents when he was 12 and met his future wife Carole when he was 13. They married in 1973 at Minster Abbey and went on to have two children – Ian and Karen (now Clayton).

In 1980 they bought the sweet shop and, while still running that, Mr Dawney started work for Lambkins coach company, which Mrs Dawney said is what first gave her husband the taste for it.

They bought their first coach in 1990 and had planned to run a couple of day trips and holidays but the popularity grew and Alan Dawney Holidays was born.

It was sold in 2007 when Mr Dawney had planned to retire, but he “got bored” and started Linda’s Travel with Linda Harvey, which is where he worked until he fell ill a couple of months ago.

Mrs Clayton said: “He was a devoted family man who would have done anything for us and he did.

“He was very proud of all his grandchildren and told them to live their lives and enjoy it.

“He fought it very bravely and told us he loves us all and to look after my mum and his mum.”

Mrs Dawney, of Western Avenue, Halfway, added: “He liked to think of himself as a grumpy old bloke, but everybody loved him.

In addition to his wife and two children, Mr Dawney leaves four grandchildren and his 84-year-old mother.

Funeral

Mr Dawney’s funeral will be at the Garden of England Crematorium in Bobbing on Friday, September 28, at 2pm.

At Mr Dawney’s request a party, not a wake, will follow at Sheerness East Working Men’s Club in Queenborough Road, Halfway. All who knew him are welcome. Family flowers only.

Donations via Havill Funeral Services Ltd will be split between the Wisdom Hospice, Demelza Hospice Care for Children and to Adam Bassettcorr, who has duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and is raising money for a Vecttor machine.