George Winstanley

Abstract

George Winstanley died, as I have recently and sadly been informed, in England on August 22 August 2014 having some time previously suffered a serious stroke. It was only in May this year that I wrote about him in this column regarding, not least, the recent mini controversy over the adoption of the national anthem. He and I had similar beginnings –he went down from Selwyn, Cambridge in 1953 and myself seven years later, in 1960. The difference was enough to mark the change from one age to another. In 1953 young graduates such as George would have been routinely recruited by the British Colonial Office to serve in Tanganyika, or Aden or Nyasaland. Five years later, with the dismemberment of the old colonial possessions, there was a sharply reduced need for those of George’s type –one of the last being, probably, Simon Gillet. So George arrived in this country in 1954 to succeed others who had similarly preceded him since the Protectorate was pronounced in 1885.