Tributes Paid To Ealing Today Forum Member Gerry Tan

Much loved member of the community whose death has been announced

Ealing Today long standing forum member, Gerry Tan has died at the age of 85. A highly popular figure who brought together many people both online and in real life.

His son Lawrence has kindly shared his father's fascinating life story in this eulogy. 

Gerald Anthony Tan

(20th August 1932 – 23rd November 2017)

Gerald was born in Rosyth, Scotland on 20th August 1932. His father was a Chinese medical student at Edinburgh University and his mother a daughter of a local dentist. In 1929, despite family opposition, the young couple married. At the age of one, Gerald and his older sister Juliet, were taken to his father’s homeland, Singapore. Two further children, Michael and Jalna, were born and the family enjoyed an idyllic childhood in the tropics.

The happy story came to an abrupt end in his tenth year in early 1942 when Singapore was invaded by the Japanese. With his mother, siblings and several juvenile relatives, he was lucky to escape on one of the last overcrowded ships to leave the island. “Women and children first” meant that he had to say goodbye to his father who was left behind in Singapore. The journey was hazardous with many of the other refugee ships being sunk. Nobody knew if or where they would land. The ship finally made landfall at Calcutta. From there, the young family made their way by any means possible across the Indian continent to Bombay. They were marooned there for months. Out of necessity, Gerald’s mother sold all of her jewellery to pay for food, accommodation and eventually passage to the United Kingdom by sea.

After a long and risky voyage, the merchant ship eventually arrived in Glasgow. The family were housed as refugees in one of the notorious Gorbals tenements. Fortunately, Gerald’s father had previously been employed in Singapore by a British pharmaceutical company who helped to establish the children in excellent schools. Life in Glasgow was made easier by charitable organisations including The Salvation Army and Save the Children.

Throughout their time in Scotland they longed for the war to end and to be reunited with their father back in Singapore. Hopes were dashed when they were informed that their father had not survived the Japanese occupation. To date, no one has been able to discover how or where their father died and no grave has been discovered. With their father and home gone, there was no alternative but to remain in Britain and forge a new life. During their voyage to Glasgow in 1942, one of the Merchant Navy seamen had taken the vulnerable family under his protective wing. He kept in touch after the war and eventually married Gerald’s widowed mother. They all moved to London and Linda was born.

Gerald completed his education and then did his National Service, serving as an Air-Sea Rescue navigator. As a young man he had several jobs including working in a mini-market in Earls Court and working in ground control for an American oil company based in West Africa. He then trained as a photographer at Ealing College of Art and subsequently took up a post at the Harrow School of Photography.

Gerald finally landed a job with the Electricity Council, developing slide and tape presentations. As technology and his career progressed, he began to write scripts and produce films related to the electricity industry. His productions included documentaries, safety films and educational films. The subject matter ranged from electrical efficiency in the home to nuclear power production. He travelled all around the UK for his productions. Gerald took early retirement from his film-production career at the relatively young age of fifty-seven. He worked part-time for several years with both Waitrose and Age Concern.

Throughout his life, Gerald showed great enthusiasm for many of his endeavours.

• ·         He became an ‘allotmenteer’, a hobby that he approached with the usual 200% commitment and enthusiasm. His fruit and vegetable growing exploits were featured in a weekly article in the Saturday Telegraph in which he was known by his pseudonym, ‘Ace Cultivator’. 
• ·         At Christmas he often became Father Christmas for the young children in the street. He dressed up in the usual red and white outfit, complete with long white beard. As the children looked out of their windows they would see Father Christmas running along the front garden walls in the street.
• ·         His capacity for organising people came to the fore when he became involved in the refurbishment of the crypt of St John’s Church which had remained sealed and unused since acting as an air-raid shelter in the 40s.
• ·         For many years, rain or shine, Gerald organised and refereed Saturday morning football for local children in Walpole Park. As the children grew up, this activity evolved into the New Year’s Day Football Match, a thirty-plus-a-side excuse to get muddy and cold with neighbours. It continues to be contested between the residents of Culmington Road and Waldemar Avenue who meet afterwards in a convenient front garden for a medicinal dram or two.
• ·         Another continuing event instigated by Gerald is the Culmington Road Open Gardens where residents open their gardens to their neighbours and provide refreshments. It is enjoyed by many Culmington Road residents who get the opportunity to meet neighbours, view beautiful gardens and have a chin-wag over a glass or two of wine.

These are just a few examples of many activities and events that came about from Gerald’s initiative and gregarious outgoing personality.

How Gerald met and married a country girl from Poulton-le-Fylde in Lancashire, and had two children, Lawrence and Lilla, is another story. A story which lasted for 55 years, until the evening of November 23rd 2017 when the story ended.

The funeral will take place on Thursday December 7th at 10am at Mortlake Crematorium. All are invited.

Family request in lieu of flowers donations to The Salvation Army - 0800 144 4774 or Save the Children - 020 7012 6400 (Both organisations assisted women and children fleeing Singapore prior to the Japanese occupation in 1942.)

29th November 2017