This Is Cheshire

Sudden death of tycoon's son

From the Guardian Series, first published Thursday 12th Jun 2003.

A man has died almost five years after a heart attack killed his millionaire father.

Yesterday (Tuesday) speaking for the first time since his 33-year-old brother Nick's death, Mark Boler said the loss had hit the family hard.

"It was very sudden and unexpected," said Mark, chairman of Mere Golf and Country Club.

"He had not been ill beforehand."

For the past seven years Nick Boler, who grew up in Mere, had owned and run Spernal House, a 5,500-acre luxury site offering facilities for conferences and business meetings in Warwickshire. His dad Stephen had built it 20 years ago.

This week Mark, who lives in Goughs Lane with his wife and seven-month-old son, described his brother as a caring and generous man.

"He was always most willing to help anyone out and make sure everyone had a good time," he said.

"He kept himself busy, had many friends and will be greatly missed."

Nick, who never married and did not have any children, left Mere in his early 20s and travelled to America and then Africa where he ran a gaming estate before returning to Britain.

During his travels he always kept in close contact with his family and his two sisters Camilla and Sarah Jane, and his brothers Mark and Matthew travelled to Warwickshire two weeks ago for his funeral.

Their father, Stephen, died in November 1998 on his way to his 200,000-acre Tswalu game reserve in Africa.

The then owner of Mere Golf and Country Club was in Johannesburg Airport when he had a heart attack. Doctors tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate him for an hour. News of his death shocked family and friends who had believed the 55-year-old was in good health.

Stephen Boler, who owned a 23 per cent stake in Manchester City, used the money he made through businesses to run the largest privately owned game reserve in South Africa at the foot of the Karannaberg Mountains in the Kalahari Desert.

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