Local Faces: George & Ada Powell

Summer is the season when you are likely to meet George Powell sitting in the sun on the Manor waste in Wendover, happy to pass the time of day with anyone who will chat with him. His Lancashire accent betrays his Northern origin so how did he come to be here? It’s all the fault of his wife of 70 years, Ada. Back in 1953 they were visiting their married daughter, Joyce, who lived in Castle Park Road and was expecting her first baby. Ada I was desperate to know her first grandchild and she noticed that the house opposite was for sale. They went to look at it and decided to buy it straight away. Both George and Ada were born and brought up in Oldham. Furthermore, their son Brian (20) and living with them. Together they ran a grocer’s shop (familiar to all viewers of Coronation Street) and George was in partnership with his brother Cliff in a taxi firm. All was resolved and they came down south.

George was only 44, with no mortgage to pay but no money coming in. He and Ada were married in 1930 and although they started the decade working in the Cotton Mills, the depression soon changed all that and George found he could turn his hand to anything to keep his family financially secure. George went to see if he could help out in any way at RAF Halton. The officer, a Yorkshire man himself, was very interested in the fact that George had been a Tank Commander in World War II and had studied applied mechanics in Harrogate so he started as a technician in Basic Studies Workshop. Two years later George also started a driving school. Meanwhile, Ada found a mornings only job making aerials at Antiference but then they phased out part-timers so she moved to the delicatessen counter at Woolworth’s.

Devout Roman Catholics, George and Ada soon found themselves at the heart of that community. In 1953 a different priest came every Sunday from St Joseph’s in Aylesbury to the infamous “Sweat Box”, in what is now Bryants Acre. Mrs. Orme, the doctor’s wife, started the Wendover branch of the Catholic Women’s League, which still meets today. By 1954 the congregation had moved to the ‘Mission Hall’ in South Street, now a domestic residence, first renting, then buying and extending it. In 1955 a missionary order bought a doctors surgery in Great Missenden and sent two Dutch priests, Arnold and Vladimir who cycled between their two Parishes and the link with Aylesbury was broken. The search was on for land for a bigger church. Land in Aylesbury Road was bought in 1961 and the Bishop came to lay the foundation stone in 1962.

George and Ada became involved in fundraising. George had been organising Church Dances since childhood so he employed Eddie Friday and his band to supply music for St Patrick’s and an Autumn dance annually for many years. The tickets were printed in what is now ‘Le Petit Café. To help the lads from Halton he laid on coaches and sold tickets to the nurses from Halton Hospital at the same time. These were big village events at the Memorial Hall.

The new church had underfloor heating and all mod cons, and Father Arnold invited the Baptists to come and use St Anne’s if their heating problem got worse. Their son, Brian, a signwriter, made the notice for the church and has updated it as necessary ever since. Ada’s contribution was to help her friend May Martin to run Bingo every Monday afternoon in St Anne’s Hall.

Meanwhile, in summer 1962 Ada was very badly injured in a car accident. She was taken to the Royal Berks Hospital where they called the chaplain from Reading Prison to give her the Last Rites. She is convinced that this helped her pull through. It was three weeks before she could be moved to Stoke Mandeville Hospital and another nine weeks before she came home. Once mended, it was back to work at Woolworth’s but later she changed to working on the wards at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and later became a supervisor in the unit sterilising all the instruments and she retired at 63 because George retired from the RAF at 65 in 1974, however, he continued with the driving school for several more years.

George loved Wendover so much that in the 1970’S he became a Parish Councillor. His particular responsibilities were the recreation grounds and footpaths. It is a long time since he retired from this post but he likes to know what is happening so he still attends meetings on the first Monday of the month in Wendover Library Room.

Not long after his retirement, George took to walking around the village. One time he was walking with his son Brian and they saw an old house being refurbished. George fell in love with it immediately and liked the location nearer to the centre Of the village. Ada didn’t even want to look at it. She loved her Castle Park home. She had the garden just right. Then she remembered it was her idea to leave oldham in the first place and how George had agreed so she agreed to look at the place and fell in love with it herself. They moved on 12th December 1978 and have lived there ever since, demonstrating daily the strength of love in their happy marriage.