Thomas Charles George

Thomas was born in Carmarthenshire and was working as a farm hand in 1911. He served in the RAF during the First World War, being sent to St Lo on 3 Dec 1917. He was evacuated from France to the London Hospital on 24 Nov 1918. At the time his home address was The Observatory, a pub in Lozells, Birmingham, where his father lived.

He married Gladys Ellen Hadley in West Bromwich in 1920.

In the 1920s he took over the Victoria Hotel in Winton, Bournemouth. He became very active in business circles, becoming President of the Bournemouth Licenced Victuallers Association for 5 years in the 1930s. He was also President of the Hampshire, Dorset and Isle of Wight Retailers Union and was Bournemouth and District representative to the National Trade Defence Association and Defence League of England and Wales. He twice stood for election to the local council.

He was keen on bowling and became Vice President of the Bournemouth Bowling Club before the war.

In 1948 he admitted to being the organiser behind the "New Forest Fairies", a group of seventy businessmen who funded anonymous present for children and food parcels for the elderly in need. He became known as "King of the Fairies" as a result. He had been a hobo riding the rails in America in his youth and knew what it was to be poor as a result. It appears he travelled alone to America in 1911, aged 17.