Obituary for George Tomlin

‘Life goes on’. That was one of George’s regular expressions latterly and few have packed more enthusiasm, effort and variety into going on with life than George Tomlin who has died at the age of 74.

George served the early part of his career with the 1st Battalion. He joined the Battalion in Londonderry in March 1972 and then moved quickly with them to Cyprus which was where he acquired his taste for sun, sea and sand as well as expanding the range of sports into which he to put so much energy. George had been an enthusiastic rock climber, mountaineer and hill walker since his school days. In Cyprus he was introduced to sailing and to the diving which was to be so important to him later in life.

From Cyprus, George went on to Junior Leaders in Oswestry, back to 1 R Anglian in Tidworth and then to Belize on what was to be the beginning of a long association with that country. There followed staff and regimental tours in Germany, in Northern Ireland with I R Anglian in which George was Mentioned in Despatches, in Leicester with The Tigers, then back to Belize for a long Loan Service tour before moving to JHQ at Rheindahlen. From there George served tours in Bosnia and Kosovo before returning to Loan Service.

George was not alone in any of this. He had married Maureen in 1972 and they were one of those couples who were always spoken of as a pair. It was always ‘George and Maureen’, one item; to speak of one was to assume and include the other. Accompanied by Maureen, George thrived on Loan Service; he was ideally suited to the challenges and opportunities of less developed places. He was highly adaptable, always curious about people and places, adept at making do and naturally very handy. He also had a strong instinct for the underdog; he worked hard to improve the lives and prospects of the people he served with in places where those considerations were not always to the fore.

During his two year Loan Service tour in Belize George was heavily involved in setting up the Belize Defence Force, for which work he was appointed MBE. This Belize tour was a golden opportunity for George to indulge his passion for sailing and to refine his diving technique. Belize was also a perfect jumping off point for exploring Central and South America. George told the tale of bumping along a mountain road in Ecuador in his old Isuzu with a sheer drop into a deep valley on one side and a condor keeping pace alongside them, apparently relishing the prospect of a good lunch when their car went over the edge. They survived and there followed service in Ghana, where they both almost died of food poisoning, and Abu Dhabi before George retired from the army and took up a successful career in defence consultancy.

George was devastated by Maureen’s early death in 2011; he never got over it. He was very well supported by his daughters Philippa and Victoria but it took him a long time to adjust to Maureen’s absence. When he began to adapt, it was a combination of village life and expeditionary work that brought renewed interest, challenge and focus into his life. George and Maureen had settled in Constable Burton near Leyburn in North Yorkshire when George left the army. He became heavily involved in community affairs and particularly in the raising of a new war memorial on the village green.

He also wrote and distributed a book recounting the biographies of the local servicemen and women whose names are recorded on the memorial. In the same period he worked as a volunteer in South Africa for a charity concerned with saving rhinos, he renewed and developed his interest in diving, making many trips to Dahab, to the Philippines, the Maldives, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize again and Papua New Guinea among other places and he even found time to take up hang gliding. His underwater photography was very professional and his presentations about his trips, which he gave to raise money for the British Red Cross, were a great success.

When he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April 2023 George was realistic and courageous. Shortly before he died he said that he had had a fantastic life. He’d had a wife he adored, two daughters he loved enormously and a career that suited him down to the ground; if he could do it all over again, he would. George died on the 24 October 2023 surrounded by his family. After his funeral service we left the chapel to the strains of the Queen song, ‘The show must go on’. George’s sentiments exactly.