Verona (Ronnie) Ayerst, Pat Charker and Iris Hayes.
Of sharks and musical ladies
Verona “Ronnie” Ayerst grew up in Wickham, in a house with a yard full of sun-bleached shark jaws. Killing sharks was a family business, and her father Jim was good at the job - as well as being an accomplished jazz trumpeter. Jim had boatsheds at Wickham, like his father Joseph before him, who had been a providore on Newcastle Harbour. When I spoke to Ronnie a few years ago she remembered her father’s “fetish” against shoelaces, which he held responsible for drownings when people fell overboard from boats and couldn’t get their shoes off. Ronnie…