Celebrating George Robson: a life spanning a century

Growing up 40km from the Anglo-Scottish border, George learned early the value of hard work.

He left school before turning 15 to lend a hand on the family farm and help his uncle with engineering work.

By 17, he was chasing bigger, the skies.

George joined the Royal Air Force as a cadet flight engineer, working on Lancaster bombers during World War II.

Though exempt from service because of his farming background, George was determined to do his part.

He still laughs when recalling the pilot aptitude test that dashed his flying dreams.

“If I were to bomb Berlin,” George once joked, “based on my trigonometry, I would’ve bombed Moscow instead.”

Even so, his time with the RAF brought both purpose and peril.

With only a quarter of Lancaster crews returning home safely, George faced close calls and saw things he still finds hard to speak about.

At 21 years old, he helped rescue women and children after a bomb hit a block of flats near Lincoln — a memory marked by loss but also by courage.

After the war, George was ready for a change.

When a friend, Owen Mohan (now of Owen Mohan Funeral Directors, Shepparton), decided to migrate to Australia, George offered him a lift to the Labour Exchange.

Waiting inside from the downpour, George found himself chatting to a young woman, who asked what he was doing there.

His spontaneous reply — “I’m thinking of going to Australia” — would soon change his life.

Weeks later, much to his mother’s distress, George boarded the MV Georgic bound for Melbourne.

He went on to work in the Snowy Mountains and later with State Rivers in Tatura, helping build and maintain irrigation channels across northern Victoria.

Never one to fuss, George says he’s made his share of “stupid decisions”, but he’s always found something to laugh about.

Cathy Hamill-Brown (Owen and Fran Mohan’s daughter) has been in George’s life since she can remember and recalls that when George came to visit, he would bring gifts from where he had been travelling, which was always exciting.

“George and Owen would play up whenever they were together, drinking, smoking and fishing,” she said.

Cathy has been in George’s life for the past 70 years and treats him as her uncle.

Now cared for by the supportive team at Menarock Life Shepparton, George still carries that same twinkle in his eye — a century’s worth of memories, and a story for every one of them.