Since I started researching my paternal ancestry I have discovered over 2500 people with links to me. Kings and Queens, Lords, murderers and even a Central American President. But one of my favourites, and one of the nicest and friendliest people to have lived, has to be one who only died in 2010. My great uncle, George Taylor.
George was born on 22 September 1926, the fifth of six children to Frederick Timmes Taylor and Alice (born Johnson). George and my grandmother Edna Taylor (Heywood) were very close and he regularly drove my dad and his siblings to Ainsdale or Southport for the day as they grew up in 1950s Speke. After my dad moved to St Helens in 1959, these trips expanded to Blackpool, Morecambe, the Lake District and the Trough of Bowland. In the early 60s he took them on holidays to the East Anglian Broads, until his brother James tragically drowned falling off a boat in 1965. James (Jim) and George were very close and worked together as shipwrights for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.
The year after Jim's death my dad turned 17 and he was given his car, as long as the roof was painted black. George obliged and fixed the engine on the 1955 Standard 8. George loved helping others in this way, and also taught my dad to drive it.
By the early 1970s holidays had progressed to Spain with my mum and dad, who were saving up to get married. George paid for most of the holiday to help them.
George was an avid football fan. As a child he used to take my grandma to watch Bootle play. He would go to the turnstiles and talk to the gateman to distract him while grandma crawled under the turnstiles so they could use the penny they saved to buy sweets. As he got older he would go and watch Liverpool or Everton play, depending who was at home that week. He eventually decided to support only Liverpool. I have many many happy childhood memories of going to sit with George in the old main stand at Anfield in the late 1970s and 1980s watching the Reds. I will never ever forget going to Wembley in 1986 with him to watch Liverpool beat their city rivals in the FA Cup final.
George never married but cared for his mother until her death in 1979 and then for his beloved sister Edna until her death five years later. The devotion he had for his family was endless.
George retired from the Docks in 1982 eventually becoming a wedding video cameraman. He also for a short while took up squash with my dad.
One of my most treasured memories of him was on a weekend in the Lake District at Ennerdale Water where he took the bark off a stick with a penknife while my brother and I climbed on the rocks. We still have that stick.
George lived nearly all his life at 123 Monfa Road Bootle, moving out a few years before he died when the street was demolished for redevelopment.
George Taylor died on 19 June 2010. He was a legend, uncle and friend to me. I will never forget him.
He summed up what his family meant to him in his last will and testament. "I thank all my nieces and nephews", he wrote, "their spouses and families for all the love and support they gave to me during my life. I loved them all."
George we all loved you too. You were - are- one of my heroes. Thank you. ❤️
(Sourced from memory and from the eulogy given by my dad at his funeral).
Baptism record (above)
My grandparents George Ernest Heywood, Edna Taylor, Jean Wilson, Harry Saunders and George (above), and George with his mother Alice Johnson and sister Edna Taylor (below).
Below - the last time I saw George on his 80th birthday in 2006.
His memorial at Anfield (below)
