TILLEY
with roots in Somerset, England
family
the
Simon Ben Tilley
Simon Ben Tilley was born in Durban, South Africa, in 1963 to Robert James Tilley (1938-2015) and Isobel Letty Anyan (1942). Over the next six years, siblings Luke (1964-South Africa), Justin (1967-England) and Imogen (1969-Germany) joined the family before they settled in Munich, Germany.
Following his parents divorce and his father’s re-marriage, Simon’s half-sister Nicola was born in 1978.
Simon started his schooling at Munich International School before becoming a boarder at Hazlegrove Prep School, Sparkford, and Kings School, Bruton, in Somerset. Half-terms were enjoyed either at Weston-super-Mare with his paternal grandparents, Jim and Marion Tilley, or at Lois Farm, Horsington, with his maternal grandparents, Bill and May [Watchorn] Anyan. In the 1970s, his parents bought a farm in Bavaria in a hamlet called Reitern not far from the River Danube, where the family would ski and sledge in the winters. One of his childhood highlights was taking part in the British Schoolboys Ski Championships in 1976.
Leaving school in 1981, Simon tried his hand as a butcher but decided after less than a week that perhaps he wasn’t quite cut out for that career. Instead, he joined his journalist father at Radio Free Europe in Munich to work as a copy boy. After a year in the newsroom, he left for South Africa, hitchhiked from Johannesburg to Cape Town and back again before training as a journalist on the Argus Cadet Course at The Star newspaper in Johannesburg. His career in journalism started with a two-year indenture at the Diamond Fields Advertiser in Kimberley. Since then, he has worked on the Daily Dispatch in East London, the Bahrain Tribune, Scottish Daily Mail, several weekly newspapers in England and numerous trade magazines, predominantly as a production editor.
Simon has four children – Alastair (September 1987), Terry (February 1988), Kyle (November 1994) and Matthew (November 1999). He is married to Angela [nee Pearce] (March 1964) and they have a golden retriever, Poppy. Simon and Angela try to spend as much time away in their motorhome “Bertha”, with trips to France, Germany and Spain among others.
To contact Simon, click here.
Simon with Poppy.
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Simon with his great grandmother Ada Margaret Look (1881-1970).
Simon with his eldest son Alastair at his sister Imogen's wedding in Chiang Mai, Thailand, in 2003.
Simon at the back with, from left, Justin,
cousin Peter Anyan, Imogen and Luke.
Ellen, the wife of Bill Boley, sits on the restored garden bench that Simon and his great grandmother sat on (above) in 1963.