Geoffrey David (SH 37-41). A Tribute by his son William:

"My father was born in Chester in March 1924, the eldest of three brothers. He grew up surrounded by horses and dogs, and retained an abiding love for both throughout his life.

His early years were shaped as a boarder at St Bees School in Cumbria, some 200 miles further north. The uniform of shorts all year round and dormitories in which the windows were never closed, and the taps on the basins down the middle of the room froze solid in the winter, no doubt helped to reinforce his remarkable resilience, determination and stoicism - attributes which defined him throughout his life.

He was typically modest about his academic achievements at school - although it is clear he was a more than capable student. But his happiest memories were in the sporting arena. He was rightly proud of winning his cap as a member of the school rugby 1st XV before he had even reached the sixth form. This was a remarkable achievement, when his schoolboy side regularly found themselves playing, not just other schools, but teams of rock-solid miners from the local colliery towns.

He left school relatively early to take up articles as a civil engineer with the County Surveyor back home in Chester. There he sat - and passed – his professional exams. Many years later, he was to be elected a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, which gave him much quiet personal satisfaction.

With his professional qualification safely under his belt, he volunteered for the army. His tales of officer training were all pretty hair raising. But one of the highlights of his service career came when he was posted to the 7th Armoured Division HQ (the Desert Rats) in Germany during the closing stages of the war. He found himself, in a scout car, unexpectedly leading the entire tank division through the night, equipped only with a hastily sketched map which he had scribbled down at the back of the briefing room some hours earlier, never dreaming for a second that he would be called up as chief navigator. Fortunately, his calmness under pressure - and an instinctive sense of direction - got him and the tanks (and the General commanding them) to their intended destination, thereby doing his bit to hasten victory in Europe.

Back in Britain he resumed both his engineering, and his rugby, career in Chester, before moving south to take up a position in the County Surveyor’s office in Wiltshire, where he became Divisional Surveyor for the South of the County in 1960. It was here that he had, as he put it, the very great good fortune of meeting and, not long afterwards, marrying my mother, Christine. And it was here, too, that he built his first house from scratch, in Berwick St James, on the edge of Salisbury Plain.

In due course there came the patter of tiny feet - mine in fact - and, a year later Penny’s, with John to follow. At this point, an opportunity arose to move to Dorset as Assistant County Surveyor, and he jumped at the chance. Dorset had for a long time been right at the top of his wish-list of places to live. Only five months later, he was appointed Deputy County Surveyor, a post he held until his retirement in 1985.

It proved difficult, initially, to find a suitable family home near Dorchester. So he decided, once again, to build one to his own design. The result was Manor Orchard, a project which he, and my mother, continued to work on throughout the next nearly fifty years. Over time, he and my mother went on to create and embellish a spectacular garden. It is full of little personal details, like his topiary, which includes an imposing pair of matching peacocks and a fox jumping over a hedge chasing a chicken.

In the 1980s, the garden achieved national recognition when it was chosen by Garden Magazine as its Garden of the Year, a remarkable accolade and testament to the patient, often back-breaking work, over many years which had gone into creating something truly special. The competition prizes included a rather fine tractor mower and a botanical tour of what was then Czechoslovakia, at that time still firmly behind the Iron Curtain.

He loved to build and fix things and was often to be found crafting something in his workshop, which was a bit of an Aladdin’s cave. Although to the untutored eye it looked as though the contents had been deposited randomly, by wheelbarrow, Pa knew exactly where everything was: whether a nut of just the right diameter, a crafty tool for sawing round corners, or an electric motor salvaged from a long defunct washing machine. He never knowingly threw away anything which might conceivably come in useful for a future project (of which there was always at least one on the go).

He loved cars and driving throughout his life, and was a member of the Institute of Advance Motorists. It was a wrench when the doctors finally decided he should give up his driving licence.

During the 1970s, my father decided to buy a boat. The boat itself did not last long - partly because it required a huge amount of maintenance each winter to keep it seaworthy - and in due course it was sold and replaced with a caravan. Although, as already mentioned, Pa was not a great one for leaving hearth and home, we did enjoy some lovely family holidays in this in France, where Pa would often surprise us with his fluency in schoolboy French, particularly when it came to buying beer.
Music was another great love of his life and he would often break spontaneously into song - with a wonderful repertoire of comic songs and Gilbert and Sullivan choruses.

During his time in Stratton he did much good work for the village, serving as a churchwarden for 25 years, and as chairman of the Parish Council and president of the Homes and Gardens Club.

It must have been a burden when he lost his mobility to the extent he did in the last couple of years.  But he was a remarkably Stoic man. You never heard him moan about anything. If asked how he was, the invariable reply was: ‘I’m fine thank you - and how are you?’. Right up until the end he was ‘ever the optimist’ - another of his favourite phrases - and he lived by the mantra ‘never give up’.

It is marvellous that he was able to remain living in the home he loved, and it would not have been possible without a combination of my mother’s devotion to him, and the wonderful help from their lovely neighbours and, more recently, carers, for which the family is immensely grateful.
 
Undoubtedly the word I have heard used most often about my father in the last few days is ‘gentleman’; and that’s exactly what he was. I don’t think I ever saw him lose his temper. Even the most obdurate piece of machinery (or individual) could barely make him tut under his breath. He was polite to a fault. And although he was generally unenthusiastic about joining large social gatherings - or even small ones - you would never have known it when he was there, in the thick of it, whether as a guest, or as a warm and generous host.

Everybody, I suppose, hopes to leave their mark on the world in some respect. In my father’s case, he did so in quite a literal way. In his capacity as a member of the national committee on public rights of way, he was instrumental in devising the wooden footpath signposts, with acorn leaves and chiselled lettering, which are now to be found, not only in Dorset, but all across the country. Beautifully designed, unfussy, natural, practical and just the job.

They are a fitting legacy for his life: as an engineer, a craftsman, and a lover of the great outdoors.

Footnote: Geoffrey David retained a great affection for St Bees. In the July 2000 issue of the Old St Beghian his cheerful and amusing recollections of the school some 60 years earlier were printed, prompting responses from some of his contemporaries. In his own words he felt that his time at the school ‘had provided a remarkably effective preparation for the battle of life ahead and that, surely, is the raison d' etre of any school’.”

 

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