Born into an old Patcham family

From old Patcham family

George Hole was one of the many individuals whose names grace the front of local buses. Although born in Canterbury in 1912, he was a Brighton man through and through, as he came from an old Patcham family. In 1906, army recruiters had stripped the local villages of young men, and his father Anthony joined up along with brother Albert. This meant that when war broke out in 1914, they went to France as part of the Old Contemptibles. Severely wounded in one of the last cavalry charges of the British army, Anthony was dead within a few weeks of the war starting.

A carpenter in the 1930s

When his father died, George was aged just 22 months and much of his childhood was spent in a Brighton orphanage. Somehow, he survived the disadvantages heaped upon him. He worked hard, ending up as a chippie on the Ladies Mile Estate, built in Patcham in the early 1930s. He married Connie, the daughter of Brighton policeman “Tug” Wilson, on 29th November 1934, which was the same day as a royal wedding – The Duke of Kent to Princess Marina of Denmark & Greece. They all shared the grim November weather – carpenter, his bride, and Royal duke and Princess.

Read Part II here