He was a popular musician, an essential cog in print journalism in Reading, an outstanding wildlife and press photographer but for many thousands of people he was a raconteur who entertained with lively and informative tales.

Ron Pearce, born and bred in the town in 1928, was a shy man whose witty asides on life kept work colleagues in fits of laughter. Modest but determined and always fair, he will be remembered as a lively soul who could quite easily have written a book about his life experiences in photo journalism.

For the major part of his working life Ron chose to remain in the back room of newspapers, learning his craft as an apprentice compositor on the Reading Standard in the days when newspapers were prepared using hot lead and a very clunky mechanical alphabet. His skill-learning was interrupted at the halfway stage when he was called up in 1942 to join the Royal Air Force - a wartime excursion which took him away from Reading to Cheshire and Hong Kong.

With printer’s ink in his veins, he returned to the newspaper industry on being demobbed in 1949 and finished his apprenticeship at the Standard, marrying the love of his life Marigold Nuttall in 1950. He was introduced to Marigold by his cousin Stan and romance blossomed. He was also making a name for himself in music circles, playing the double bass several evenings a week at places like The Oxford pub in Oxford Road.

Some years later, the Reading Evening Post was born and Ron became one of the speediest typesetters in its comp room, always taking an interest in the stories he was preparing – only now in a new world of cold-set type where the hot and dirty heavy machinery had given way to electronic keyboards and strips of photographic paper.

It was an environment which appealed to the wise-cracking pipe-smoker, not least because of his strong interest in the Reading Camera Club and wildlife photography. Country walks always saw him clutching his trusty Nikon camera and he produced some breath-taking images. Together with some colleagues from the Evening Post, Ron later moved from Tessa Road to the thriving Thames Valley Trader in King’s Road where hourly deadlines gave way to a somewhat more leisurely pace.

It was whilst here in the 1980s that he met the owners of the then fledgling INS News Agency and got chatting over lunches at the nearby Salisbury Club. The agency recognised Ron’s amateur skills as a photographer and realised that there was an ambition to be part of the news coverage of big stories rather than typesetting other people’s work.

Within months he was covering major events across the Thames Valley for the Reading-based agency, even taking dramatic pictures of the late Princess Di when she rushed to the Royal Berkshire Hospital after Prince William had his skull fractured in an accident at school in Wokingham.

“Ron had a very sharp sense of humour and I was often reduced to tears of laughter by his witty remarks and commentary on things he was covering out in all sorts of weather,” said INS Editor Neil Hyde.

“I am proud that he was INS’ first photographer and that we introduced Ron to the varied life of news photography and my co-director Chris Felton and I are honoured that he developed his skills so brilliantly in the latter years of his working life.”

It was Ron’s immense library of photographs which led to a busy retirement as dozens of Women’s Institute groups, camera clubs and local organisations clamoured for his time with entertaining talks. Not only was he able to show the pictures of the events but he had a story to tell of how he shot each one. He had rubbed shoulders with the good and the great and Royalty and was simply superb at recounting the hilarious stories.

Having moved from Northumberland Avenue to Croft Road in Wokingham he and Marigold made a great circle of friends and he spent his latter years trying to find time to indulge his passion for gardening in between guest speaking at luncheons and WI teas.

Sadly the loveable man of so many talents fell victim to Alzheimer’s Disease a year ago and passed away at the age of 89 years and a cremation service was held at Easthampstead last Friday. Ron is survived by his adoring widow Marigold to whom he had been married for an extraordinary 67 years.