It is now over 50 years since George Blue died but some people you never forget. He was one of those special people in my life. He was only 44.
I met him when we were billeted with him and his wife Joan during the tennis tournament at Sutton in Surrey in 1971. I can clearly remember him greeting us at the door loudly. He had been a Sargeant Major in India which wasn’t hard to imagine. George was nothing to write home about in the looks department. He was short and portly. He was mostly bald with a big mole in the middle of his head. But we had an instant rapport.
George and Joan had a beautiful home. Neither of them had come from wealthy families so they treasured every part of it. To say the least it was immaculate both inside and out.
Joan and her cleaning lady, Hilda spent their days cleaning it lovingly particularly a whole lot of brass which was in the entrance portico. She was a very heavy smoker and used to have several ashtrays positioned in various places with a cigarette burning in them while she went about her work.
George owned butcher shops – 7 of them including one in Paris. He would be up at the crack of dawn to go to the markets each day to buy the meat and would be still sitting at the dinner table in the early hours of the morning, sometimes nodding of to sleep. One could hardly blame him after such an early start.
The food and wine at their place was top notch but the lifestyle we lead whenever we stayed at the Blues was probably not ideal for up and coming tennis players.
