When someone old dies it is important to remember them not only as they were in the last years, but their other lives before the spirit was knocked out of them. The last few years can make one forget a very different Geoffrey. So lets remember a different Geoffrey today – to recall some aspects of his very varied life – all of which have, in ways, shaped him as well as throwing light on different parts of this complex man
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First the bright little redhead in Liverpool being moved in moonlight flits from lodging to lodging by his grandmother, mother and aunt who had fallen on hard times and couldnt pay the rent. Many moves involved new schools, and each time having to assert oneself. We have one school report on Charlie, as he was known, at age of 7.
Manor Road School, Wallasey. Conduct Excellent. Charlie has made excellent progress especially in number He should gain a scholarship. 7th out of 56 children. Marks 50 and ¼ out of 53.
But it was his street fighting skills about which he would boast later, and show how you defended yourself as taught by an uncle. He would probably not have been a pleasant opponent to meet on a dark night.
Then this same bright assertive character’s life was changed irrevocably by contracting TB and spending many many years in hospital, with consequent minimal attempts at education. Picture him being wheeled around Brighton in a handcart. And then those years in the Chailey hospital on the beach at Bishopstone being subjected to a so called health cure. Wearing only a pair of shorts from April onwards, a sweater allowed in the winter. And immersion in the sea at regular intervals. We have a picture back at the house.
One had to be tough to survive.
Then the teenager, freed from the hospital, moving to London, able to limp around, who started developing his political ambitions whilst setting about educating himself in the V and A and libraries. This self education led to him acquiring the reputation amongst my family and friends of knowing everything. ‘Ask Geoffrey, he’ll know’ was particularly galling to Margery when ofcourse he did know, and the subject was one she had spent several years at university studying.
The war put an end to his plans of working up the hierarchy in order to become a labour MP and cabinet minister. The war also had a benefit as the place where the records of communist party membership were kept, was bombed and records burned. A help perhaps in his subsequent career.
It was perhaps because he was not able physically to be actively involved in wars [apart that is from being a fire warden in London during the blitz] that he had such a deep interest in military history. For him his uncles stories of the First world war, and his emotional involvement in the politics of the Spanish Civil War, remained vivid.
And then those extraordinary years in Bolton with Mass Observation. A wonderful experience for those young and perhaps foolish enough to endure the privations of the communal living. Many many stories of those days including being arrested as a spy when sent to Liverpool on some harebrained scheme to check out peoples reaction to bombing.
And then London, and the beginnings of the Government Social Survey and of married life in Bloomsbury with a motley and interesting group of friends and acquaintances, and in time a baby, Charmian. And the excitement, as so it seemed later, of wartime bombing and rationing, and of living above a brothel. Heady times.
Travelling round Europe from the 1950s opened up the world, where he was always learning, and remarkably, always remembering. This amazing memory that could recall for Margery whether she had been to a place or not, of which she had no recollection; who could tell her if she had already read a thriller when she couldnt remember. And reading, always reading, in WHSmiths at lunchtime, whenever there was a problem [a wonderful escape] and always before he went to sleep.
And the International Passenger Survey, perhaps his most lasting professional achievement, which in 2001 extraordinarily celebrating its 40th anniversary. His ingenuity in getting agreement to the officials at all the air and sea ports, and his ideas about overcoming the problems of getting a random sample of travellers resulted in many people having funny [in retrospect] tales of those pioneering days. Oh those dreadful winter channel crossings! And memories of a Heathrow airport where there were huge gaps between longhaul flights – hours with no passengers at all. Imagine!
And in 1970 becoming the head of the Government Social Survey, at Assistant Under Secretary level. No mean achievement for someone with little elementary education and no higher education.
And then retirement when he was able to indulge himself at the cottage with sailing his own boat in Newhaven bay, without any instruction, much to Margerys terror. And acquire amazing skills and patience designing and building his lute; building flint walls and ofcourse travelling
While he was devoted to Charmian, his daughter, he was never an active grandfather doing traditional grandfatherly things with his grandchildren Rachael and Daniel, although always immensely involved in and concerned about Cham and his grandchildren. Perhaps because he had so little loving parenting he did not feel he had much to offer except to Cham, which is sad. But his late discovery of his Aunt May and the development of a positive and loving relationship with her perhaps helped him overcome his negative feelings about his roots and the fact that his father walked out when he was 3 and later refused to see him; and his mother presented to him only an image of immaturity and instability.
Sadly he felt disappointed at how little he had achieved in his life. But considering his entirely unpromising beginnings, with a childhood which can only be described as deprived, and with his physical disability which would have stopped many people from even trying, he achieved a great deal in his life, and led a remarkably rich life.