George Bull, our senior Trustee, died in June. We always greatly valued his wise counsel. George was nearly 97, a Yorkshireman, born in Hull on 22 July 1904. Son of a Merchant Sea Captain and the penultimate of six distinguished brothers, he moved to Plymouth and then to Hartlepool where he was by the time he started at Pocklington School; as a boarder aged 12. He was so proud of his school and was a Governor there for 40 years. He became articled to a solicitor in Hartlepool and, as a regular cyclist to Greatham, he courted and married Helen Parish, the daughter of the Master there. Many will remember their gracious home, The Little Manor at Whitesmocks. He served Greatham Hospital, an historic and wealthy foundation, as a governor until 1994 – when he was appointed a Life-Governor – and his remains will be buried in its Chapel.
George’s first important legal post was as Town Clerk at Haslingdon in Lancashire and he was appointed Town Clerk of Durham City in 1944. The City of Durham Preservation Society, as the City of Durham Trust was then known, had been founded two years before and George was soon appointed a Trustee. In later years George would joke that he had been known as “Mr Clerk the Town Bull” and indeed his panel in the Town Hall has a unique image of a bull thereon. His time with the Durham Corporation corresponded with the publication of Thomas Sharp’s important planning report Cathedral City where Sharp made visionary projections for Durham City which, in the form of the Leazes Road and Bridge bypass, only came to fruition in the late 1960s and 1970s. The Preservation Society developed and honed its qualities and, with such big guns as Cyril Alington and Cecil Ferens, resisted the introduction of a power station. George Bull remained a Trustee when he became founding Area Secretary of the Law Society Legal Aid Area no.8 North of England, based in Newcastle–upon-Tyne.
He retired in 1969 and immediately took a consultant post with Hay and Kilner, Solicitors of Newcastle -upon-Tyne. He was also by this time a well-established Lay Reader at St Margaret of Antioch Crossgate, Durham City, became a much respected pastor and preacher at St Edmund’s Bearpark, and then a member of both St Oswald’s Durham and of the Baptist Church, maintaining dual membership with impish and tight-rope-walking commitment.
In retirement George took an Open University B.A., progressed towards a Durham Bachelor of Civil Law degree (his Legal Aid thesis was thought to be splendid but perhaps unusually personal) and got to the semi-final of Mastermind. At his 90th birthday celebrations the City Trust’s present was a trip in a helicopter from Ramside and at his reception in the Town Hall we learnt of his deep concern and help through his Legal Aid work for those in the local area suffering from emphysema.
He had an enviable intellectual agility until very near the end. Earlier this year George moved from his flat in Hallgarth Street to the care of the nursing home across the road. What a fascinating life he led, all enhanced by his delightful personality, full of his interest and care for others, a strong faith, a lovely and mischievous sense of humour, and great wisdom. One always felt uplifted and cheered to have met him. His fine Service of Thanksgiving at St Oswald’s Durham on 15 September had the language of the Book of Common Prayer that he loved, together with the eccentricity of “Hobgoblin nor foul fiend” in John Bunyan’s hymn. George has reached the end of one stage of his pilgrimage.