George Ernest Vernon, 1902-1986

Birth:    28 Apr 1902, 10 Sydney Road, Eastbourne, Sussex
Death:    30 Jun 1986, Craig Dunain Hospital, Inverness
Burial:    3 Jul 1986, Cromarty Churchyard
Father: Charles Ernest VERNON (1864-)
Mother: Martha PACKHAM (1865-)
Spouse: Marjorie Minnie VERNEY

Children:
Alison Marjorie Ellen VERNON (1925-2006)
Colin George VERNON (1928)

Occupation: Assistant Ironmonger, Cobbler, and Bus Conductor in Eastbourne, Sussex.

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Notes for George Vernon

When his wife, Marjorie, died in 1971 from complications arising from diabetes, he came to live with the his daughter, Alison Dunn (née Vernon) and her family in Cromarty, Scotland. He was a very courtly man, and very popular with the elderly ladies in Cromarty. Very polite, very old-fashioned, very considerate.

I believe that when he was young he had suffered some kind of accident and had badly broken his arm (right I think). It had set badly and the elbow joint was never able to rotate properly. A minor hindrance at work, this probably saved his life. Too young to serve in WW1, he wasn't called up for WWII because of this disability.

‘Pop’ was an old-fashioned man. He believed, for instance, that the Prime Minister (Margaret Thatcher at the time) was above criticism. She had been elected, and we should do as we were told and let her get on with her job. He was still very much of the generation when young men went off uncomplainingly to the trenches and machine guns because their betters told them to do so, and knew better than them.

He was polite and courteous to the point of being irritating to his impatient teenager grandchildren, who were also constantly infuriated by such quaint habits as his saying ‘five and twenty to six’ instead of ‘twenty five to six’. Ah well, different times, different generations.

At bottom, he was a very nice man with no pretensions to being better than his working-class birth, despite, I believe, his wife Marjorie’s aspirations to middle-class status.

Know more about George Vernon? Please email me with information. Thank you.

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Gallery: click to view larger versions

George and Marjorie Vernon Shortly after they were married, 2 Mar 1925, Christ Church, Eastbourne.	George Vernon and great-grandson George Vernon with his great-grandson, Andrew Dunn in about 1983. George would have been 81 at this time. His daughter, Alison (1925-2006), is in the background.
Marjorie, George Vernon with Alison Looks to be about 1925, as that was the year that Alison was born.	George Vernon and Clem Verney George Vernon with his brother-in-law Clem (Clement) Verney. Taken around 1930.