A great man has passed away

A tribute to Ken Linacre

 
Phil Bitter, Holland

I have known Ken Linacre since 1990, when he judged the Cardigans at the championship club show in Holland. 
A few years later we had serious problems with PRA in Holland and together with Ken I started to trace the pedigrees of the proven carriers. Ken achieved that the University of Cambridge funded Dr. Simon Petersen-Jones to start a research to identify the gene that causes PRA. Numerous blood samples were sent to Cambridge and all three of us spent hours on the phone (no computers yet), looking for a needle in a haystack.  
I shall never forget the day Ken phoned me, asking me to sit down very firmly and then told me that Simon had succeeded in identifying the gene that was responsible for PRA. 
As the modest man Ken was, he gave all the credit to Simon Petersen-Jones, but without Ken's knowledge of pedigrees, it would have been much harder.

Ken and I stayed very good friends and I always enjoyed the moments when we met at shows in England. 

Sarah Taylor, England

I knew Ken for over 30 years. He was quite a quiet man and did not attend many shows especially in recent years when his health was failing. As a judge he was well respected and one always felt he was 100% fair and honest in his decisions.  

Anita Nordlunde, Switzerland

I met Ken Linacre the first time in 1981 when I visited Crufts with a view to meet some breeders in the hope of buying a Cardigan dog puppy for show purposes. Ken was always very kind and helpful in tracing old pedigrees for me, answering numerous questions about colour inheritance or the odd blue eye in a non-merle Cardigan. In February 1990, I visited Ken and as I am very interested in the history of the breed we went through old photos and archives which at the time were kept at his home and he kindly copied dozens of pages from the old handbooks for me. Ken was a very modest man with a profound knowledge of the breed and a fine sense of humour.