Mr Edward George Turner

Edward George TURNER, known affectionately as Ted, was a kind hearted, gregarious, right jolly English gent, loved by all who knew him. He was born on the 27th of June 1911 at Blake Cottage, Horn Street in Winslow, Buckinghamshire, where his father was employed as head groom to Mr Gosling of Blake House. Ted attended Winslow School where he had a very short scholarly career, punctuated by an incident of tom foolery involving filling the classroom inkwells with something nasty, after which (depending on who tells the story) he either quit or was asked to leave. His only real achievement at school was the winning of the gardening prize, marking the beginning of what would become a lifelong love of the past-time. In 1925, at the age of 14 with academia firmly behind him, he took his first job as a mechanic for Bell’s Garage in Winslow.

In 1928 the family moved to Whaddon, Bucks where Ted’s father ran the Lowndes Arms pub and shortly after that Ted left Bell’s to become chauffeur to the eminent eye doctor Sir Richard Cruise, personal ophthalmic consultant to King George V. Evidently the King had insecurities about his poor eyesight and felt the need to have his eye doctor present at all times. The King’s insecurity worked out very well for Ted, whose position took him frequently through the Buckingham Palace gates, to the races at Ascot, and to France, Monaco, and other popular Royal destinations abroad. What a life!!!

Then, one historic day in the mid 1930s, Ted wandered into The George Pub, which was just across the way from Bell’s Garage at Market Square in Winslow, and fell under the spell of a vivacious red head, the engaging Miss Phyllis Mary COLLINS, only daughter of The George’s Publican. He married her at the parish church on the 26th of January 1938, and the couple moved to London where they lived at 7a Wimpole Mews. Their first child, a daughter, was born a year later.

Unfortunately, Britain entered World War II shortly thereafter and Ted and Phyl didn’t have much of a chance to settle into every day life with their new baby. As his father had 15 years earlier, Ted felt the call of duty and left his young family in the Autumn of 1940 to join the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers regiment of the Royal 8th Army. He spent the next 5 years in North Africa and Egypt, serving under General Montgomery. After the war, Ted took a job at Mulliner’s Garage in Northampton, where he worked until his retirement in 1975.

The couple’s only other child,a son, was born in Northampton soon after Ted’s return from the war. For many years the family lived on Hunter Street. Then in 1959 they purchased a home at 132 Towcester Road in the Far Cotton section of Northampton and that is where they lived until Ted’s death from liver cancer on 25 February 2000. He passed away at the age of 88 at the Cynthia Spencer Hospice Center and was cremated. His kindness, warm wit, and jolly nature keep him alive in the memory of those fortunate enough to have known him.