Sadly George past away in Brandon Park nursing home, at the age of 90.

George has been part of Beck Street and in our lives as long as I can remember. When we were children we would come across George either digging his ditches or pigeon shooting in a hide. We learned to tell the time due to the roar of George’s motor bike, either going or coming home from work.

In latter years, I inherited the “task” from another neighbour Peter Rudge to take George to get his weekly supplies and pension. He would amuse me with his one liners, I would ask, “How are you today George? “Have been better,” he would reply.

On our trips I would hear stories…how George walked to Hepworth school in all weathers, amounting to about thirty children by the time they got to Hepworth crossroads, as Weston Hindle children were also going that way, (Wood Lane was over grown and impassable). I don’t know at what key stage, George was in math’s at that point in his life.

His first job when he left school, at the age of fourteen, was to take a horse and cart to Hopton, where upon meeting a bus near Market Weston church, the horse, took fright, leaving George hanging on for dear life, he had never been in charge of a horse before!

I also learned about bombs dropping on the road in Market Weston and where planes crashed in World War II.

Another interesting story was the huge Giro-tiller which was brought in by the War-Ag to cleared the scrub land (full of Gorse bushes etc.) to make fields at the bottom of Beck Street.

Later he worked on Barney Rumberlow’s farm and this involved many other anecdotes and stories, one of which was unearthing Roman pottery kilns from the previous inhabitants of this area.

When George retired, being a keen gardener, gardening became his main occupation and his much-admired garden was where he would pass the time of day with his neighbor’s.

As George became less independent he had the good fortune to be cared for by Elaine, I’m sure all who knew George would like to thank her for her dedication together with his nephew Michael.

We will miss George he was a countryman and character you are unlikely to find these days. I’m sure when George arrives at the golden gate and St Peter asks “how are you?” George’s reply will be “this looks better”

R. I. P.

Perry Penn