George Forbes Davie (1902-1964)

GEORGE FORBES DAVIE (1902-1964) was born on 21 May 1902 at 24 Huntly Street, Aberdeen. His parents moved to Union Grove shortly afterwards, and finally settled in their house in Irvine Place when he was five years old.

He is said to have had a secure and happy childhood, and to have been popular, good-looking, clever, and much adored by his little sister, Eleanor.

George was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School, and went on to read chemistry at Aberdeen University, in the company of Edwin Dodds, who became his brother-in-law. He had "a wonderful time" at university. The dates of his study are uncertain, but he graduated at the age of 25 in November 1927 with the degree of B.Sc. in Engineering.

While Edwin worked for the Anglo-American Oil Company, George took up employment with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. He departed for Abadan, in Persia, but was desperately homesick, and in no time at all had thrown in the job and returned to his parents in Aberdeen. Sheila Dodds has a snapshot of him at Port Said "with bandaged head", taken on 17 May 1929, but it is not clear whether this was on the outward or the return journey. George is said to have gone on to become a chief analytical chemist at Anglo-Persian.

On 2 April 1932, however, he married Harriet Winifred Leslie (known as Winnie), of 125 Oscar Road. She was a little over three months pregnant. It appears that George was forced by his parents to "do the right thing", and on his wedding morning was in tears, begging his parents not to make him go through with it. The marriage was in King's College Chapel in Aberdeen.

Winnie was the daughter of James Travers Leslie (1889-?), M.C., a Captain in the Royal Berkshire Regiment, one of ten children and headmaster of a school in Aberdeen, and Annie, née Machar (or Mackie). She was a "tall, elegant, amusing woman", and took pleasure in the company of men. Winnie worked as a legal secretary. Her sister-in-law, Ella Dodds, did not get on with her, and blamed George's later decline on her.

The couple set up home in a shared house at 6 Marine Terrace, where their son Leslie was born in September 1932. The following year they moved to 9 Anderson Avenue.

In 1935 and 1936 the electoral roll shows George living at home with his parents. This may have been during one of his periods of unemployment - he had difficulty holding down jobs. It is said to have been about this time that he turned to alcohol. (He was also fond of licorice!) This may have been much earlier, though - during his university days. At some stage also, he became ill with a bout of alcoholic poisoning.

Family life was far from idyllic, and it is said that when George had been drinking, he tended to take out his frustrations on his sons.

Around 1937, George moved to Luton. It is said (by Enid Dodsworth) that just before the war he was working for Vauxhall Motors on the design of a new car.

Winnie and the two children went with him, but with the outbreak of war, the family moved back to Aberdeen, and remained there for the duration of hostilities. They had a house at 168 Crown Street.

On 29 December 1939, George was recruited into the Royal Armoured Service Corps, and reported for duty on 3 January 1940. He was posted to 901 Company on 30 January, and then to the 1st Armoured Division Troops Company as a driver, serving with the British Expeditionary Force in France from 16 May to 23 June. He held the rank of corporal. It is not clear whether his failure to undertake officer training was due to idleness or to cynicism of the elitism of the officer class.

At the end of 1940, he met Enid Corin of Cranleigh. He had been digging a trench outside her photographic studio. They subsequently met in a bar, which was by now, it seems, one of George's pastimes. She was attracted by his Scottish accent, and in January 1941 she became pregnant by him. Enid was living with her mother at the time. Her mother did not approve of George, and pressed for an abortion, but Enid decided to brazen things out and their son, Hector, was born on 20 November of that year.

However, on 20 January George had been posted to the 2nd Armoured Brigade Company, and then on 9 May to the 12th Light Field Ambulance, whereupon he was sent to North Africa, leaving Britain on 24 September. He was one of the 35000 men garrisoned at Tobruk when it fell between 20 and 30 June 1942.

He was driving his truck on 20 June and it broke down. He was trying to fix it when a German scout car came his way. He hid behind the truck and aimed his rifle at the German officer. The German officer saw him and said, "Get behind the flak". George then walked in the direction of the German lines and was interned.

He was taken into internment in Italy, in C.C. 65 P.M. 3450 at Gravina, south-west of Bari, reaching it on 25 July. Gravina was a large camp, built for 10000 prisoners. Conditions were harsh and unsanitary. On 31 May 1943 he was transferred to another C.C., 53 P.M. 3300, at Macerata in central Italy.

The Allied invasion of Italy started on 3 September 1943, and the action moved rapidly northwards. On 20 September 1943 George was sent to Germany, arriving on the 22nd at Stalag VII A at Moosburg in Bavaria, where he spent six weeks. On 4 November 1943 he was transferred to Stalag 101 - XVII A, at Kaisersteinbruck-bei-Bruck (Leitha), southeast of Vienna in Austria, and shortly thereafter to XVII B, Gneizendorf. (Gneizendorf, or Gneixendorf, is a suburb of Krems, on the Danube between Linz and Vienna.) Here he worked at an associated labour camp at Fels-am-Wagram, repairing a Luftwaffe barracks, and at the end of May 1944, he was drafted to Tulln, some 30 km to the east of Krems, and half way to Vienna, where there was a strategic Danube crossing, to repair the railways. He worked at Tulln for a year.

On 7 April 1945 he and his colleagues escaped from the Arbeitskommando, and hid from the SS for three days in an underground shelter until he was released by the advancing Allied (i.e. Russian) Troops. (His military record records that his final release was on 11 May 1945.) He and his group made their way eastwards through Rumania. George was repatriated via Odessa one month later.

He visited Enid and Hector once after his return. At one stage there was talk of him divorcing Winnie, but she held out against this.

After the war the family returned to live in Luton, and were at 36 Trent Road, Limbury, in October 1949 and October 1950.

While they were there, Winnie commenced divorce proceedings against George, and a decree nisi was granted on 23 November 1950.

Winnie and the two children moved to a house at 5 Salters Way, Luton. In the first quarter of 1956, she remarried, to William John Hurst, at Luton. She lived at 14 Dale Road, Luton, between 1963 and 1965, when her second husband left her. Then Winnie's younger son, Norman, moved in until 1967. She later moved to Wellside Cottage, East Burnham Lane, Farnham Royal, Bucks, and was there on 30 November 1973, when she made her will. She died on 19 March 1976 at 26 Hampshire Avenue, Slough. She left her estate, valued at £2134, to her son Norman Davie, and "nothing to my husband, who has not supported me for the past ten years."

George moved to London, and was at Chiswick House, Moss Lane, Pinner, a nursing home run by Dr D. Macaulay, in mid-1951.

On 15 March 1952 George remarried at Uxbridge Register Office. His wife was Doris Gertrude Hoggart. George gave his address as 52 Keith Road, Hayes, and his occupation as Electrical Inspector (Electronic Engineer). The witnesses at the ceremony were E.C. Holtern, F.J. Lloyd and L.G. Hoggart.

Doris was 50 years old, the daughter of Percy Lloyd, a licensed victualler. She is said to have been "a small, plump, twice-widowed, immensely religious woman, who for a time kept George on the straight and narrow". At the time of her marriage she was living at 30 Kingsley Avenue, Southall. At one stage she visited her brother-in-law's family, the Dodds, in Scotland, and during her visit, George, left behind, returned to his riotous ways.

This marriage foundered, and by 1964 George had moved to 64 Lillieshall Road, Wandsworth. He died of bronchitis at Stockwell's South Western Infirmary on 9 April 1964, aged 61. His widow Doris inherited his estate. However, his ex-wife Winnie was the informant of his death, and it was she who arranged for his cremation at Luton. She is said to have kept in contact, and to have retained a soft spot for George (as all the women with whom he came into contact seem to have done!)

1 LESLIE FORBES DAVIE (b.1932), who later changed his name to DAVID FORBES LESLIE, adopting his mother's surname because he did not like Leslie as a Christian name. He was born at 6 Marine Terrace, Aberdeen on 28 September 1932.

After an unsettled childhood, mainly in Aberdeen, he left school at 14, and joined Vauxhall Motors in Luton as a mail delivery boy. Two years later, in 1948, he took Vauxhall's three year chef apprenticeship. At 19, he was called up for National Service and went into the R.A.F., who made him a cook for two years.

Ten days after his discharge, he sailed on the Queen Mary for New York. He made his way to Toronto and went to work for Canadian Tire as a parts man at the end of 1953.

A chance meeting led him to move to Calgary and Vancouver, and to a job cooking in Banff National Park. When the camp closed, he went to study aircraft mechanics at the Calgary Institute of Technology.

This was only partially successful, and he went on to the University of Alberta at Calgary to study Commerce. He was at 729 15th Street N.W., Calgary, Alberta, in 1956. The third year of his degree course was at Edmonton, and here he met Marilyn Leith Somerville.

He graduated in 1958 and worked for a time for Remington Rand in Calgary selling office systems. Using his savings, he took a round-the-world trip.

On his return, he decided to study Law in Edmonton, finishing in Vancouver. During his studies he cooked at the radar stations on the DEW line. He married Leith Somerville at Edmonton on 15 September 1962.

He was articled in Vancouver, and worked there, and in White Rock, Terrace, Prince George, with a branch office in Gibsons.

In 1969, he and his family moved to Gibsons and was active in starting a commune. There were some twenty to thirty members. They kept pigs, and Forbes would go into Vancouver three days a week to practise law.

In 1972, Leith and he parted, and Forbes went to Mexico with Barbara Lees. He later returned to the commune in Gibsons, staying there a further nine years.

In 1981 he returned to Vancouver, and married Shilan Chin, who had arrived from Taiwan the year before. He moved to Japan to set up an import and export business of natural foods. The business did not prosper, and they returned to Vancouver. Forbes took odd jobs, and Shilan studied anthropology at the University of British Columbia.

In 1989, they found jobs picking apples in the Okanagan. They moved to Cawston, but Shilan left to take a Masters Degree in Counseling in Seattle. Forbes worked on a book on communities, and later got involved in cooperative ventures in the organic apple business and started a mediation business in Penticton. In 1996, he moved to Kelowna, British Columbia.

1.1 COLIN ROSS LESLIE (b.1964), born on 5 October 1964. He studied creative writing at the University of Victoria, and later took a four-year course in Journalism at Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto. He is an associate editor at the Medical Post and managing editor of Nutrition Factor, and lives in Toronto.

1.2 ALISON FRANCE LESLIE (b.1967), born on 29 June 1967. She moved to Toronto with her brother and friends after graduating from High School. She studied Zoology at the University of Toronto, graduating with a B.Sc. in 2000.

2 NORMAN GEORGE DAVIE (b.1933) was born at Aberdeen on 27 September 1933. He moved to Luton with his parents, and trained as an apprentice cook with his brother at Vauxhall Motors. He did National Service in the R.A.F., serving for a third year. He was stationed at Halton and was involved in the catering. It was while he was at Halton that he met Barbara B. Warboys. He married her in the third quarter of 1953.

The couple went to live at 63 Warwick Road, Luton. Norman went to college, and qualified in Mechanical Engineering and Technical Science. He then got a post at Vauxhall as Area Inspector (Engines). In 1958 the family moved to 22 Stanford Road, and Norman was there until 1965.

Norman and Barbara divorced in 1963. Barbara and the two children moved to Ayot St Lawrence, between Luton and Welwyn Garden City. She subsequently remarried, to a Mr Williams.

From 1963 to 1974, Norman lived with Barbara Dowdswell, née Strange, for whom he had had an attachment for some time. He then moved to the house formerly occupied by his mother and stepfather at 14 Dale Road, and was joined there by his mother in 1967. (According to the electoral roll the house then lay empty from 1968 to 1980.)

Norman and Barbara moved to a restaurant in Shirley, Southampton, and in late 1973 were living at 46 Coxford Drove, Maybush. Later he lived at The Mount, Romsey Road, leaving this address in 1979. He moved into property - dealing in houses, garages and flats.

Barbara left him in 1974, and around this time he met Valerie Player, and her two children Mark and Vicky. He sold up the business, and the family went off to Nice for some three months. When the money ran out, they returned to Southampton, where Norman went into partnership, buying and selling company cars, and later mopeds. He later reverted to contract plumbing and pipefitting until his retirement in 1998.

Norman moved to a retirement flat at 27 Mansel Court, Mansel Road, Southampton, SO16 9ED. He currently works for five hours a day driving a minibus to and from a school for disabled children.

2.1 STEPHEN L DAVIE (1954-2003), born at Luton early in 1954. He married. For a few years before his death he was living in Finchley: "a punk type of a glam-rock / heavy metal, old school original person, an Aquarius with a mind that never tired." He suffered a massive heart attack at the end of May 2003, and after five days in intensive care, died on 1 June 2003. He had a son:

2.1.1 ADAM DAVIE (b.19??).

2.2 MICHELLE DAVIE (b.1958), born in January 1958. In 2001, she was living with her partner near Welwyn Garden City.

2.3 IAN SPENCER DAVIE (b.1967), born on 25 July 1967 in Luton. He lived with his mother in Dawlish Avenue, Shirley, after she had left Norman. He worked for Philips Semiconductors in Southampton, and studied Analytical Electronic Engineering. In 1991, he moved to work for an American software company based in Guildford, later setting up the UK operation of an Austrian company. He married in 2000. In the same year, he joined Versant as a software engineer. In 2004, he and his wife, Elaine, were living in Witley, Surrey.