OSAmag81

T h e O l d S t a t i o n e r - N o 8 1
Back row: Colin Lea; ?; Bernie Kelly; Ronnie Day;
Brian Cook; Dereck Pyrke; Dickie Rundle. Front
Row: Brian Owers; George Sabini; George Cottrell;
David Owers: Stan Dickens.
the house and George awoke under a pile
of rubble as the ceiling fell in on him. His
parents were unharmed as they were safely
tucked-up in the air-raid shelter which
George had considered to be for cissies.
Also during this period of the Blitz, George,
being a young and more active member of
the accountants’ staff, was press-ganged
several times a week for night-time roof
duty. This entailed wielding a long-handled
broom and knocking any incendiary devices
that had landed on the roof into the street
below. What fun this must have been for a
17 year-old. In 1942 at the suggestion of a
friend, he joined a tennis club which was
affiliated to the local Methodist church. It
was here one afternoon that he was attracted
to a somewhat sunburnt and red-faced
young woman out on court. He turned to
his friend and asked “who is the strawberry
tart?” What a description of the lady who
one day would become his future wife! Her
name was Mollie and they soon started
stepping out together. Their courting
continued apace until the following summer
when George received his call-up to join
the RAF. He was billeted in a rather
swanky St John’s Wood apartment and sent
to the Long Room at Lord’s Cricket
Ground where he was kitted out in his
uniform. George joined an Initial Training
Wing in July 1943 and the powers that be
decided that he had an aptitude for flying.
In January 1944 full of fear and trepidation
he boarded RMS Andes in the Upper
Clyde to make the dangerous journey across
the North Atlantic to New York and then
by train, firstly to Canada then on to the
mid-west in the USA. Here he joined
Course 20 at No. 3 British Flying Training
School in Miami [Geraint: this is
pronounced ‘my am ah’], Oklahoma and
over the next 8 months learned how to fly
aircraft. He graduated as a pilot and was
promoted to the rank of Sergeant Pilot
exactly 70 years ago last Wednesday. For R
& R, on some weekends, George and fellow
pilots on a Friday afternoon would hitch a
ride direct to Chicago along the famous
Route 66 which passed right by his airfield.
His US based training completed; he made
a trouble-free return trans-Atlantic trip on
the luxury troopship liner 55 fle De France.
During the trip he celebrated his 21~
birthday. Within 10 days of arriving back
in the UK a wedding to Mollie was
arranged, honeymoon leave granted and
his next posting to Scotland confirmed.
Luckily for George he was still training
when it became apparent he would not be
required to enter combat, as the war in
Europe was rapidly coming to an end. In
late 1945 the birth of his only child,
Michael, took place and George spent
most of that day drinking and playing
darts with his chums in a pub at the top of
Muswell Hill. The RAF in their wisdom
retained George’s services for all of 1946 as
his Wing Commander had recognised his
sporting talents. Most of that summer was
spent representing his squadron at not
only tennis but also cricket. 1947 saw a
return to Civvy Street and a return to the
City accountants where in 1951 he
qualified as a Chartered Accountant.
During the 1950s major events took place
in George’s life. He joined a new tennis
club with Mollie, one that had a bar and
permitted tennis to be played on Sundays,
something of course which was anathema
to Methodists. This was a good move as
George together with his doubles partner
went on to win 21 men’s doubles titles at
the club. The family relocated from
Muswell Hill in 1957 to the leafy North
London suburb of Totteridge and for
George this was to be the start of a
residency that lasted 54 years. In 1953
George joined the Secretary’s department
of United Dairies in Bayswater and by
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