Simon Davidson was born and raised in Cheshire, but moved alone aged 16 to Brougham when he left school and imprinted an indelible stamp on the Penrith area as a corner shop owner, distributor of the Herald newspaper and as a fanatical supporter of Manchester United.
Timothy Simon Ord Davidson was born on November 2, 1962 in Gosforth County Durham. His father, Derek, was a sales manager for Kraft Foods and his mother, Joyce, managed a dress shop.
The family moved to Hartford, Cheshire, but Simon’s father died, which precipitated a decision by Joyce to emigrate to Louisiana, USA, to be near her sister Mary when Simon was aged seven. He had a hard time at school there as the only foreigner and the family soon returned to Knutsford, Cheshire as Joyce remarried.
His parents bought a plot of land in Brougham where they built a house and spent many holidays, and Simon moved here in 1979 when he was apprenticed at Lloyds Motors. He did a day release course at Newton Rigg and earned a distinction in agricultural engineering. He next worked for WCF on Gilwilly industrial estate, and part-time at The Crown, Eamont Bridge.
In 1982, he came to work part-time renovating and spraying cars for the Askews at the Queen’s Head, Askham, where he met Brenda Scott who was working as a cook.
The next year he had major surgery on his back and his doctor feared Simon might be wheelchair-bound for life.
He wed Brenda in 1987 at Martindale Church — as Brenda’s father Sid had been born, raised and farmed for many years at Dalehead, Martindale. When he regained fitness he worked with his father-in-law Sid as a general farm worker for Lavinia Lowther at Whitbysteads, Askham, while he and Brenda set up their married life in Castletown, Penrith.
But his back trouble returned, and it was a testament to his grit that he then embarked on a career in forestry. He started a log business and sold Christmas trees at Lancaster market and sent wagon loads to Manchester for the wholesale market. He loved forestry as one of his friends said, “he was always at his happiest cutting down trees and chopping up firewood”.
Through his love of tree work Simon left his mark on the local landscape. There’s a beech hedge still on Brougham Avenue that Simon planted in his teens, a now sizeable chestnut tree nearby on the roadside at Brougham he planted as a conker and Brenda says whenever they were passing Tebay Services Simon would proudly say of a wood he planted which won John Dunning an award; “I wonder who planted that, they really made a good job of it!”
In January, 1991, Simon and Brenda’s son Scott was born and Sophie arrived in May, 1993. In 1995 the family moved to Askham, where Brenda was raised, to run the Village Stores where they would spend a happy nine years. Village life suited Simon well as Brenda says: “He took to it like a duck to water.”
They made lifelong friendships with local couples who had children of similar ages to their own.
By the year 2000 Simon’s knees were so bad from the ravages of his forestry work that he and Brenda decided to take on the corner shop in King Street, Penrith, for Simon to run and later opened another one in Keswick.
It was at King Street that Simon would make lifelong friends of many workers from the nearby General Post Office, and at this time he also started delivering the Herald newspaper.
Through historic family connections, Simon also had the distinction of being a Freeman of the City of Newcastle.
But it was Manchester United and sport in general that gave him the greatest pleasure. In the 1990s and 2000s Simon went to every home game at Old Trafford, either taking his son’s friends or taking the paper boys from the Penrith shop like Jason Little and Ryan Brown.
Simon took them to their first football matches and when they were being interviewed for jobs doing the papers at his shop, they could not possibly admit to supporting any team other than Manchester United, especially not Liverpool.
Such was his passion for the red shirts that when he was about to view a house in Great Strickland and upon hearing that it was called “Old Trafford”, he cancelled the viewing and bought it unseen. The red and white doors of his garage are a prominent landmark in the village to this day.
After he suffered a stroke in 2016, Brenda took him to indoor bowls at the Penrith Leisure Centre. He liked it so much he joined Friars Bowling Club, in Penrith, where he went on to become a green keeper.
Two years ago, he took up walking football at Frenchfield with many old pals from the post office and the Herald.
Simon’s life was defined by hard work no matter what health challenges he faced, but he always had a mischievous sense of fun. Simon loved the sun and holidayed with Brenda for the last 11 years in the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa in celebration of their two birthdays in early November.
It was there that Simon, living life to the full, had the quad bike accident that would cost him his life.
