Memorial Service for Lord George of St Tudy |
I can see the Governor now, in my mind’s eye, in relaxed mood at the Stock Exchange Christmas lunch in the recently demolished building, in those days when the Chancellor of the Exchequer also had time to attend. He has a sack of modest but carefully chosen gifts which are presented to an assortment of business moguls, financial titans, senators and mandarins, each with an appropriate quip.
As friends and family remember, his sense of humour was delightful. Perhaps he was himself the source of the story circulating in the City that he was having lunch with a fellow banker somewhere in Cornwall. At the next table was a local journalist whose flapping ears overheard the startling intelligence that we were going into the euro on Monday. He rang the London papers with the scoop of the century. The editor checked with Lord George who was at first baffled and then recalled that he had said that he was intending to go into Truro on Monday.
Eddie George as we have heard was the consummate professional, a vocational banker who lived modestly and was not primarily motivated by money. His achievements were bound up with his personal qualities. In a day when there is an exaggerated interest in image and makeovers, Eddie inspired trust because he had a character founded on firm principles. Do you want to know what really turns me on? he asked a startled journalist at lunch – Stability!
When the Bank of England was established, St Paul’s, the latest of the series of Cathedrals on this site, was under construction. We are grateful for Eddie’s contribution to the Cathedral Council and to the St Paul’s Appeal. The Cathedral and the Bank have grown up together and this is not merely a historical coincidence.
The economy depends on confidence and its efficient operation on truth telling and shared values. Eddie George was tenacious in upholding those values. In particular, he had a heartfelt respect for the word and accuracy and discretion in speech, without which we poison the wells of civilization.
He also had a passion for education. He regarded the scholarship he won to Dulwich College as his great chance in life, the “gateway” to his later career. It is typical that as Chairman of the Governors of his old school, he exerted himself to swell the bursary fund to increase opportunity for those otherwise unable to afford such an education while he also interested himself in the Commonwealth Education Fund which was established to give opportunities to some of the poorest children in the world. He was determined to give something back and leave a legacy for others.
Many of the letters Vanessa has received mention Eddie’s capacity to listen and his courtesy. He listened to young people and was impressed by the way in which young people, potential recruits to the Bank of England, would ask about the Bank’s wider community outreach. This was part of the inspiration behind the development “Heart of the City”, the organisation which assists City enterprises to discharge their Corporate Social Responsibilities.
He also nourished new affections and became a great advocate for Cornwall. He and Vanessa became pillars of St Tudy Church. Who can forget the successful campaign to secure the night sleeper and his work as a trustee of the Cornwall Community Foundation.
His affections were tenacious and supremely in his devotion to his family. He met Vanessa in the Congregational Youth Club in Sutton and on a day like this of public appreciation we surround Vanessa; Julian and his family in Australia; Elizabeth; Alexandra and Dominic in their private sorrow and pride with our affection and our prayers.
We all have to get a living and cope with the ordinary demands of feeding and clothing ourselves and our families. There is a necessary labour which serves our biological needs but beyond that we are invited to work in a way which enriches the world and leaves a legacy; to work in a way which expresses the deepest and best in us. Tragically there are many people who discover only too late that we are all called to this higher work beyond the ordinary labour of life.
We heard in our first lesson - If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have not love, I am nothing.
The Governor understood the world of calculations, bargains and negotiations but he also lived without preaching but with conviction on a plane of generous love in which the transactions consist in gift-giving with the grace which can enrich and transform people.
He was a true believer in the Christian faith which has gift and grace at its heart. God so loved the world that he gave his Son. The Son gave himself back to the Father and the Holy Spirit is at work inviting us into the great exchange of love which is the deepest principle of the universe.
The sense of the loss of such a man from our earthly sight is deep; but such was the quality of his life that there is nothing bitter or unwholesome here. He has left to us an example of labour faithfully discharged but much more than that he has left us his legacy which endures and lives on in family, in friends and in the wider community.
And for him the journey continues in a different dimension. Here we see through a glass darkly and know in part; but Jesus Christ holds out the hope that we shall come to know even as we are known.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
