{"id":327,"date":"2019-05-23T00:48:44","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T00:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/?p=327"},"modified":"2019-09-18T20:58:15","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:58:15","slug":"tribute-alex-kovacevic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/2019\/05\/23\/tribute-alex-kovacevic\/","title":{"rendered":"Tribute – Alex Kovacevic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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Alex passed away on 24 March. Here those who knew him well pay their tribute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, Roy Tunstall, chairman of West Middlesex branch: \u201cTall in height and in stature, to many of us Alex Kovacevic was West Middlesex CAMRA. He joined CAMRA aged 24 before the Branch was formed in 1974, attended the inaugural meeting at the Queen\u2019s Head in Cranford and was heavily involved in our activities over the last 45 years. He was the organiser of 12 Ealing Beer Festivals until 2001, also stepping down as Branch Chair in the same year. He later returned as deputy festival organiser until 2016. In recent times he was Brewery Liaison Officer for Fuller\u2019s \u2013 a role he had previously undertaken for the short lived but well remembered Grand Union Brewery in Hayes. He worked in the press office at GBBF and on various bars and tombola stands at festivals across London. Outside CAMRA he was chair of Durden Park Beer Circle and set up his own handyman company, Mr Reliable, following the sale of his father\u2019s shop, SK Radio in Hillingdon. A keen fan of motor racing, he would often be seen at Le Mans. In more recent years he was known to us as \u2018Granddad\u2019. We express our condolences to his own family and everyone in the wider CAMRA family who knew him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

John Cryne adds, \u201cGREETINGS! \u2013 you didn\u2019t need to see the speaker, it could only be the larger than life Alex striding into the room. Sometimes with an odd hat, always with a big smile. When he worked on the tombola stand at our festival, takings soared; customers brought to the stand by his vocal encouragement and bell ringing prowess. It cheesed off the nearby bar staff mind but it was sales that counted. From the time when we shared the storage of a glass washing machine used by London Drinker Festival and Ealing to more recent times when he did lots of odd jobs for me, Alex was a true friend. Looks like that back list of jobs won\u2019t get done now as I am not sure there is any way of replacing him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, Georgina Wald, Corporate Communications Manager at Fuller\u2019s, said: \u201cWe were very fond of Alex in the Fuller\u2019s PR department. He was a lovely man with a very sunny nature \u2013 and always time for a chat. He was also an excellent Brewery Liaison Officer. He was never judgemental and always had time to listen to our position and he was understanding of the pressures of modern day business, while still being a diehard real ale fan at heart. That level of balance was always very much appreciated by us, the brewing team and the directors at Fuller\u2019s. We knew that Alex had been ill but he always put a brave face on it so we were stunned to hear that he had passed away. We have some great memories and we will all miss him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex passed away on 24 March. Here those who knew him well pay their tribute. First, Roy Tunstall, chairman of West Middlesex branch: \u201cTall in height and in stature, to… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camra-news","category-tribute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":329,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327\/revisions\/329"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/londondrinker.camra.org.uk\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}