Obituary - George Keith
George Keith died on 31st October 1997 aged 81. George was a life member of the CTC who joined before 1944. I had known George Keith, not since then but for over 20 years. He came on the first ride of the reformed Salisbury section on Sunday 8th April 1979. George was a true gentleman touring cyclist.
Model Engineering
When I first knew George, he still had many of his model ships. He had been a member of the Model Engineers in Southampton before the war. He used to build some very grand models of famous ships, some of them quite large. They would be tried out on the lakes on Southampton common. He was editor of the Southampton Model Engineers magazine for a number of years. He let me read through the master set of copies he had. When the post of editor for our own local cycling magazine became vacant, George was persuaded to take it on. This he did for a few years producing an excellent publication.
George had shown that not only could he edit and write articles for the magazine but he could also sketch. George had a great talent, which enabled him to take a photograph and produce a masterpiece of a pencil sketch from it. His sketches have appeared in our magazine for the past twenty years. His last sketch to appear was in our spring issue this year, where he had sketched the clock tower of Selwyn College, Cambridge, to accompany an article on cycling in Cambridge.
But George’s greatest love was cycling itself. He had cycled much of mainland Europe and Ireland before the war, with his great friend John Lee. During the time I had known George, he not only used to quite regularly take part in our weekly rides but also on occasions he led some. He always helped to deliver our quarterly newsletter. He helped marshal some of our cycling competitions, such as the BCTC where not only cycling skills are judged but also courtesy and good manners, both of which were always second nature to George.
When my elder daughter was going on her first long ride on her own bike, we chose to take the train to Gillingham and ride to Stourhead where we had a grand meet of touring cyclists. I rode in front to do the decision making with Paula, my daughter, behind and George bringing up the rear. George was only too willing to help. With George’s assistance it turned out a very successful, pleasant maiden day.
George had an ambition to have cycled in every county in Britain. Only a few years ago, George used the train to complement his bike and to complete this ambition. There was one area, up on the remote islands of Scotland, that George had not cycled. He took his bike on the train, travelled north and finally on the ferries to complete his life’s ambition. George kept meticulous records of all his cycle mileages. He indexed them by counties. George used to do the books for various companies around Salisbury and thus was used to having verifiable records. George devised a simple idea of getting a verifiable record of the places he visited. He would put £1 into his Post Office book and thereby obtain the post office franking stamp in his book. He was very proud of obtaining the stamp from the town after his own name in Scotland, Keith.
On Sunday I attended the remembrance service in Salisbury market square . I was reminded that George used to collect for the poppy appeal and do very well indeed. George served in the RAF during the war. He was connected with the medical corp. He served in North Africa. The war left a deep mark on George that affected him for the rest of his life.
Alan Clarke (1997)
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