Obituary - Fr George Forbes 1991

Fr. George died pcacefully in the infirmary of the monastery on 4 July. He was seven months short of his ninetieth birthday. In recent years his life had become gradually more limited, first by deafness, then by arthritis and finally in the last year by progressive failure of his eyesight. He did not give in to his disabilities. It was only in the last few months that he was completely confined to his room. It was typical that, when a wheeled chair became necessary, he didn't take the easy way of being pushed: he used it to lean on as he walked with difficulty to the refectory or calefactory.

He was a fighter to the end, who continued to do as much as he could for himself and troubled others as little as possible. He remained as orderly as he had been all his life and you could set your watch by his movements. Nothing could be done for his deafness and he must for many years have suffered from the rupture of communication and the loneliness it brought; nevertheless his response for those who took the trouble was always amused and amusing with some story always to tell and no trace of self pity. He had long ago decided it was time for him to move on to eternity and seemed envious of those who went before him. He wanted to let go but there were long weeks at the end when he seemed about to die but didn't. When reviving from a bad turn, he apologised for recovering and hoped to do better next time. In the end he went to God gently and easily with one of the brethren present, when it was least expected.

Fr George was born in 1902 at Shrivenham, although the family home, where he spent his childhood was in Rothiemay. He was the eldest son. His four sisters have outlived him, but not the youngest of the family, his brother Fr Charles Forbes, who was nineteen years younger and died in 1983; it was a puzzle and sadness to Fr George that his brother should have been taken and he left behind. George was received into the Church at the age of nine in 1911 and two years later started life at Ampleforth in the Lower School. It was a decision for which he later expressed profound gratitude to his parents, for whom the alternative possibility had been Eton. He left the school in 1920 with high distinction - Head Monitor, a member of the 1st XV and having passed 8th into the Royal Military College Sandhurst with a prize cadetship. In 1922 George passed 9th out of Sandhurst with a prize for military law. He was commissioned into the Grenadier Guards and seemed set for a distinguished military career.

In the following year, however, he resigned his commission and received the habit in the monastery from Abbot Smith. In due course he successfully took Maths Mods at St Benet's Oxford, decided with unflustered objectivity that he had gone as far as he could with Maths, completed his degree as a pass degree and began to read theology at Blackfriars. He was ordained priest in 1931 and began teaching Mathematics in the School with a devotion, thoroughness and understanding of those who found it difficult to master the demands of the School Certificate, which put many successful candidates in his debt.

Inevitably in 1931 he became CO of the OTC. In those days it meant that he had the whole school at his disposal for two afternoon every week; and they all went to camp for a week at Tidworth in the summer, where Fr George's background in the Guards raised him to the heights. The school was suitably impressed when he appeared as a field officer on a magnificent horse to marshal the troops when they went on exercise.

In 1936 Fr George took over the Junior House from Fr Illtyd. He had four years as Housemaster - enough to show that he knew how to bring the best out of that age group and to win their respect and affection. But his responsibility for small boys lasted only four years: it came to an end when he went off in 1940 to serve as a chaplain. It was not for six years that he came back after service in this country, North Africa, Italy, Austria and Palestine.

When Fr George had resigned his commission in the Guards in 1923 to give himself to God as a monk, there was no revulsion from his career in the Guards. He had seen it in terms of service and dedication. That commitment was not repudiated; it was superseded by a higher service and more sacred dedication. When he returned to the army as chaplain, for Fr George the two types of service came together and his personal dedication to his work as chaplain was sincere and profound.

At first he served in this country with the 7th Guards Brigade and the 6th Guards Armoured Brigade. In October 1942 it was announced that officers over the age of 40 could not serve overseas. Being half-way through his 41st year he saw that regulation as a challenge, somehow evaded the bureaucratic obstacle and got himself posted to a General Hospital in North Africa. He arrived there in March 1943. Of course he was happy to serve in a hospital, but he longed to be with the troops up at the front. It was typical of how things worked for him that he had hardly landed in Algeria when an unexpected vacancy led to his being posted to the 1st Guards Brigade which was the only Guards Brigade in Tunisia and at the time actively engaging the enemy. Thus he returned to the Guards and remained with them to the end of the war. With them he saw action in the last battles in North Africa.

After the victory in North Africa he decided to take part in the Sicily landings. Since he was not sent there officially he had to make special arrangements. His contacts and influence seemed to be particularly good and spread through a network of Old Boys, some of whom were contemporaries, some whom he had commanded in the OTC, some young officers for whom he had been responsible as small boys in the Junior House. He arranged an unofficial adventure and took part in the landing at the Pachino bridgehead. After that experience he had to return to train with the Guards Brigade in Africa and did not move with them to Italy until February 1944 in the aftermath of Salerno.

It was at this point and through the following year in Italy that Fr George's outstanding qualities as a chaplain came into their own. Almost immediately after landing, the Guards Brigade was thrown into the battle in the bridgehead over the river Garigliano. They fought a difficult action at Monte Ornito in appalling weather and conditions of indescribable hardship. His introduction to action in Italy is thus described in his diary: 'The first night in that position was one of the most unpleasant I have ever spent. It came on to rain at nightfall so heavily that we gave up any idea of sleep, and during the night it turned to sleet and hail with wind of gale force blowing. To crown it all the Germans opened up with their mortars at five am as a prelude to one of their frequent dawn attacks.' In the months that followed the hardship and danger did not seem to get less. The difficulties may be judged by one comment made by Fr George about the wounded he was tending in the front line: 'in really bad weather it took as long as thirteen hours to get a (wounded) case to a wheeled vehicle in this sector'. His account, written afterwards, was full of praise for others, revealing little about himself. It was here at Monte Ornito that he was awarded the MC. His own decoration is not mentioned in his diary. After the Ornito battle he named six who were awarded MC and added the laconic comment 'and maybe some more.' There was indeed another, Fr George himself, but until his death a copy of the citation was not available here. With typical modesty he had kept it dark; but it should go on record now:

Rev (4th class) Ian George David Alastair Forbes

This officer was with my Battalion when occupying positions in contact with the enemy in the vicinity of Mt Ornito from 8 to 20 Feb. During this period the officer was constantly subjected to artillery, mortar and small arms fire and was attacked frequently. The conduct of this officer was beyond praise throughout. He showed a complete and utter disregard for his personal safety, and was always to be found where the battle was fiercest or the shelling most intense, giving courage to the wounded and dying, and inspiring the remainder by his contempt of danger. He frequently organised and accompanied parties to go forward from our position in order to bring in wounded. He was an inspiration to the whole Battalion, and I am not skilled enough with a pen adequately to describe his conduct.

sgnd N.R. Norman

Lt Col commanding 2nd Bn Coldstream Guards

Very strongly recommended. The same facts concerning this officer's conduct have been told to me by both the Welsh and Grenadier Guards as the results of his visits to them. He has indeed been an inspiration to all ranks.

sgnd J.C. Haydon

Brigadier 1st Guards Brigade

sgnd R.L. McCreery

Lt General Commander 10 Corps

The same selfless service continued through Cassino, where he seems to have risked his life daily and hourly simply in order to bring Mass and the sacraments to the most forward troops, to look after the wounded and bury the dead. From the descriptions of his diary and his record of those who were killed and wounded (all mentioned and remembered by name), the campaign through the rest of Italy seemed quite as awful as it had been from the first. There were respites, however, when he was presented personally to the King on his visit to the army and to the Pope, when Fr George was on brief leave in Rome. 'I was thrilled,' he wrote, 'to have spoken to both the Pope and the King within a month.'

He crossed the Po, penetrated to Austria, worked for the return of POW's to England, and then, when the end came, he returned home by air. Security forbade the revelation beforehand of the intended landing place in England. He found himself in Lincolnshire near the main railway line. He was able to stand by it and watch the trains go by. He was a lifelong railway fanatic, who knew more about trains than one would have thought possible. His idea of bliss was to go on a railway journey. He made a point of trying out every line and knew all the timetables by heart. It was, therefore, reassuring for him to land near a railway line on his return to England from the war; and it was not just any railway line but the familiar one from Kings X to York. For Fr George watching the trains go by was the best possible restorative and symbol of the transition to normality.

However, the War Office was by this time so forgetful of its own regulation about over-forties that they planned to send him to Japan for the invasion of that country. When the war in the east ended even that was not the end for Fr George. They did not relent; they sent him instead. It was a different sort of duty altogether. He was there from October 1945 to February 1946. His account of the last weeks there make it seem like a reward for all he had gone through and all he had given in the previous three years: 'I moved to Nazareth myself on December 31st. For the next month I was privileged to be the parish priest of the (military) parish of Galilee. From Headquarters in the Austrian Hospice in Nazareth kept by the Brothers of St John of God, where I had the use of the Chapel, I travelled daily over the roads which Our Blessed Lord must have known so well, to Cana of Galilee, Tiberias, Capharnaum, the Mount of the Beatitudes, Tabigha (Behsaida), Naim etc... It was a peaceful and happy time, culminating with a retreat for all the MEF chaplains in the Italian Hospice on the Mount of the Beatitudes during the first week of February.'

After that came Fr George's posting for home. He notes that it meant that he had to leave the 1st Guards' Brigade 'after being with them for just on three years in North Africa, Italy, Austria and Palestine, almost a record for a chaplain's appointment.' No wonder they wanted him yearly to say Grace at their dinner so long as he could travel to London.

Fr George returned to Ampleforth just in time for the term in September 1946. 'People have often asked me the question,' he wrote, 'Did you not find it very difficult to settle down to the monastic life again?' The answer is easy. It was just like slipping one's hand into a well-worn glove. For one thing, the monastic life was much easier physically than that which we had been living for the past six years. On top of that was a certain wonder at still being alive, an inability to realise why, when so many better men were dead, and the hope that perhaps God had still some work for us to do.' Fr George very simply, quietly returned to the ordinary routine of monastic life as though nothing had happened, although his memories were alive and he never shed them - memories especially of those he had served with and those who had died: 'The sight of troops on the march brings such a flood of memories that I am quite overcome.'

He never held another major appointment. He became part of the life of the monastery again, living simply and unobtrusively. He was Junior Master for a time and Subprior. He was always available and willing to go on supply to the parishes. Such work on the parishes had the added attraction of a journey on the railways often extended by the choice of a circuitous route. He continued to be available for anything he could do until his physical disabilities confined him finally to the monastery.

Years later, when the war had become like ancient history to a new generation, one officer, who had been with him through the worst, wrote that Fr George's contribution to the life of the officers and men of the units in the Guards Brigades could not be estimated this side of heaven: 'only by your having an MC could we express that combination of fearlessness, love of your fellow men, and desire to share your utter faith with us unbelieving, mocking soldiery, which was the hallmark of George.' He goes on to describe him as a fearless and humble man of God who had been always steadfast in fidelity.

That gift of fidelity equipped him to face calmly the horrors of war; it sustained him in the uncertainties and cross-currents of the peace to which he returned. The strength of his character and conviction was complemented by understanding and an often inarticulate but very real gift of compassion; his lively sense of humour helped to see him through. For him, as for most of his generation whose sacrifices had made possible the liberty which now seemed to be in many ways misused, there was much to try him. He changed as little as he could while remaining loyal to the Church in its development. He was grateful for permission to continue, when he recited Office in private, to use his Latin Breviary. It was said that in the war he had never missed one of the Hours, even under fire. Whether true or not that story was well-founded. He was faithful to his prayer above all else and this came out very clearly as he prepared for the death, for which he had to wait so long and so patiently. When, towards the end, he asked for the last blessing he added softly (thinking, as the deaf often do, that he could not be heard) 'although I am not worthy of it.' That officer who had described him as a humble man of God was not far wrong.

GEORGE FORBES

Details from the Abbey Necrology