A LABOURER who discovered a rare hoard of gold coins at Childrey Manor in 1937 has died.

Fred Dawson, who died aged 98 at The Crown Nursing Home, Harwell, on January 17, was a well-known character in Wantage.

He enjoyed a moment of fame in April 1937 when, while digging a drainage ditch, he uncovered a stash of 44 coins buried during the English Civil War.

The coins, six of which are now owned by the British Museum, had been buried in a brown earthenware cup, 18in below the ground and underneath a flagstone.

Experts believe the 20 shilling pieces, dating from 1606 to 1640, had been hidden during the Civil War by someone fleeing their home, who had never returned to collect them.

After the coins were declared ‘Treasure Trove’ by a coroner, he used the money he received as a result to set up a smallholding of pigs, chickens, geese and a cow in Charlton, near Wantage, which, along with beekeeping, became his passion.

Daughter Shirley Powell, 72, said: “After the hearing, he told the newspaper he was going to take his wife and baby daughter, me, on holiday, but I never got any holiday.”

Indeed, from his birth in Wantage in 1911, Mr Dawson only ever left the town and its surrounding countryside during the Second World War, when he fought in Germany and Belgium; on trips to watch wrestling in Swindon; and when he finally moved into a nursing home.

Mrs Powell said: “He never went anywhere else. He never went on holidays at all.

“He never went shopping all his life to buy food or clothes. He would not have even known what a food shop was like.

“He loved his shooting and gardening. He was always outdoors, and never indoors.

She added: “We lived off rabbit and pheasant.

“After the war, we actually lived quite well because although we were on rationing, he would go and catch rabbits and pheasant, and my mum could make a meal from nothing.”

In 1979, he hit the headlines again when police called him in to shift a giant swarm of bees that had landed on a car in Wantage Market Place.

Working without any protective clothing, he told the Oxford Mail he was immune to bee stings because he had been stung so many times.

Mr Dawson’s wife Cecilia died in 1994.

He is survived by Shirley and sons Anthony and Raymond, eight grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren, and three great-great-grandchildren.

His funeral will be held at Charlton Chapel, Holy Trinity, tomorrow at 10.20am.