Uncle George

Sadly due to a long-running, inter-family dispute, none of the blood relations of Uncle George were welcome at the funeral, only his second wife.

I was in part named after him, along with his father i.e. my grandfather on my mother's side, also a Georg (Germans drop the last 'e') and in Bavaria where grandfather Georg was born, Georges' are called 'Schorsch' or in the dimunitive 'Schorschi'. I didn't know until this printed announcement that his middle name was Paul, highly unusual christian name in Germany. This was my English father's first name. And just to add a bit more strange things, Angie's cousin who died two days ago, had the surname 'Paul', again not a surname you see in Germany often.

The above death announcement was posted by his two children, Susanne & Gunnar who both live in Berlin and have not been welcome at the family home in Offenbach near Frankfurt since the late 70's. They even had to conjure up tricks to be able to visit him on his death bed. His half-brother Jochen, with whom he had been very close, was kept away from contact. I think the last full family, adults get-together was on my wedding on 30th July 1977, my mother's birthday too. The hotel evening meal they had after the wedding, to celebrate her birthday, turned into another sad affair, Georg's wife not at all happy at not being the centre of attention for a whole day.

Uncle Georg was a sort of hero figure to me, I wasn't ever as close to him as my (half) Uncle Jochen. Very sad.