My husband, Alistair Dixon, who has died aged 62 of liver disease, had a successful career in telecoms and music until 2015, when we gave up our day jobs, moved to Broadstairs, Kent, and became the co-owners of the Bay Tree Hotel.
Alistair worked in telecoms for three decades, including playing a role in setting up the Three network in Ireland in 2004-05, and in 1997 used some of his earnings as a management consultant to co-found the celebrated independent record label Signum Records, based in Middlesex.
Signum recorded the complete works of Thomas Tallis with the professional choir Chapelle du Roi, which Alistair founded and conducted. He also sang with the choir at the Roman Catholic St George’s Cathedral, Southwark, was active with the Academy of Saint Cecilia, a musical society, and was a founder of the Cantiones Press.
He had a sense of civic duty, volunteering with the Samaritans and at HMP Wormwood Scrubs, which included visiting prisoners and monitoring their welfare. He was a keen runner and competed in marathons.
Born to Joan (nee Hopwood), a university lecturer, and Marcus Dixon, a stockbroker, the eldest of four children, Alistair grew up in Ware, Hertfordshire, and at 14 became a music scholar at Millfield school, Somerset, studying the violin and organ. He graduated with a degree in electronic engineering from Liverpool University in 1982.
After holding the post of director of music at St Mary’s church in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, Alistair became a songman in the cathedral choir in Derby in the mid-1980s. In 1993 he was appointed a Gentleman in Ordinary at Her Majesty’s Chapel Royal, where his duties included singing the Sunday services at St James’s Palace and providing the music for state occasions such as the annual service of remembrance at the Cenotaph.
We met in 2002 and lived in West Kensington and Sydenham, south-east London, marrying earlier this year.
On buying the Bay Tree Hotel, Alistair and I took great pleasure in transforming it into one of Kent’s smartest hotels. We rescued Ben, a Bedlington terrier (now deceased) and bred two more, Ptolemy and Leila. Alistair thoroughly enjoyed welcoming hotel guests and making them feel at home. He was a talented cook, training as a chef with Broadstairs College and creating a high-quality menu for the restaurant. From 2016 to 2020 he served as chair of the Broadstairs Tourism and Leisure Association.
He is survived by me, his mother and his siblings, Angus, Helen and Rachel.
