William George "George" Rebbeck 1901 - 1994 Eldest son of Sydney Francis Rebbeck and Emily Coombes Rebbeck
Recollections of Bygone Days part 6 1986
The lady took both my hands and held them saying "Thank you for staying to talk to me. I haven't laughed so much for a very long time." "Well, you haven't had much to laugh about, my dear, have you? But you've had good news today, I hear." "Yes" she said "The Canadian government have agreed to settle my medical expenses". In order to persuade the insurance company responsible for the damage inflicted upon me by their client that the damage was more than temporarily superficial I had to visit the consultant surgeon at his surgery In Norwich. It was after five o'clock on a Friday afternoon after an ordinary surgery. He had not had access to my "notes" and was using a tape recorder, all "on" "off" and "over". Half the time I didn't know if he was talking to me or his receptionist. Also he had not seen the x-ray photos. I didn't feel very impressed, especially as I'd had to pay in advance - £25. But the report when it came was very much in my favour, liberally sprinkled with professional jargon. It helped me persuade the Insurance Company to up their first offer of £500 to £1000. My solicitor asked me if I would like to discuss it with the chap in the Norwich office from his office in Holt after he'd got to £1500. 1 did - "will you repeat your offer?" He did - and I assured him that a joke didn't become any funnier when it was repeated. We then did a bit of "auctioning" and we finally got to £1800 plus expenses, including the consultant's £25 (for half an hours work) There is a follow on to this story. I wasn't happy about something and one of our surgery group suggested that I might like to see the consultant again. I agreed but not "privately." I went to Cromer hospital and met Mr Phillips the hip "operator" who very much wanted to do my left hip. When he had looked at my creaking joints and I had once more obstinately refused to have the operation, we stood around waiting for something, Mr P, three white coated young 'learners", a nurse and a quite young and quite attractive secretary. I forget what the delay was but the "great man' was quite affable; he asked me what I'd been doing before I retired and I told him. "Hmmm. quite a cushy job," he commented. He was asking for it so here it came. "Yes, a job I enjoyed - there was only one snag." (look out here it comes) "What was that ?" "It didn't pay £50 an hour." He grinned and said "Point taken". ****** Who Wouldn't Enjoy Wood A wooden train resided for many years in the garden at , High Kelling where George and his beloved Lena lived to the end of their days. Peter and his brothers played with that train and Peter's sons played with it. Other Rebbecks had fun playing with this train. George would have taken great delight in their pleasure. Extract from an email from Grandson Peter Hancock
Other Recollections of William George "George" Rebbeck George's cousins, the Brenton daughters, have said that they can never remember a time when they saw George without his wife, Lena in his company. Long before they married they were already a "couple". The documents that Peter sent on speak for themselves. 2003 |
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last amended January 2004
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