OBITUARY
Edmund John Garnet Clark
06.01.1926 – 11.10.2012
The man known to all of us as John was born Edmund John Garnet
Clark along with his twin sister Rosemary on 6 January 1926
interrupting the 21st birthday celebrations of the under nanny Mabby
who holding no grudges later became one of his children’s godmothers.
John and his twin were the youngest of 6 children and were brought up
in the family home of Red Lodge in Tadworth, Surrey.
He went to Prep school at St Peters, Seaford, Sussex and then on to
Canford, Wimborne, Dorset where he excelled at sport. He appears
extensively in the book of ‘Cricket for Schools’ by J T Hankinson first
published in 1946. After school he went to Oriel College Oxford where
he was awarded a blue at tennis.
At the end of the 2nd World War he was commissioned into the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve
minesweeping in the Mediterranean based in Malta. After the war he joined family firm Gollin &
Co a worldwide import and export merchant, headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. It was in
the Melbourne Botanical Gardens under a Kohai tree that he met Alison Bridge. They were
married on 24 September 1949 at Kingswood in Surrey. Their married life started in an
apartment in Chelsea just off the Kings Road where Nigel their eldest son was born on 21 Sept
1950. In 1951 they moved to Dover Barton near Reigate. Richard was born 11 July 1953
followed by Katherine on 14 February 1957. John became managing director of Gollin Europe
moving to its new European headquarters in East Croydon.
In the late 1970s he helped with the start up of an office furniture manufacturing company and
in May 1978 the family moved to Millstones. In the early 1980’s he helped set up a company
exporting machinery and components to office furniture manufacturers in Nigeria. In the mid
80s the company expanded to include supply of wood-effect laminated chipboard to office and
domestic furniture manufacturers in the UK.
John retired in the late 1980s to concentrate on the upkeep of the extensive gardens at
Millstones, playing golf and enjoying from time to time a few glasses of Famous Grouse. In the
1990s the gardens were opened annually for the village and as Chairman he helped in obtaining
Lottery funding to re-furbish the Coronation Hall. He and Alison were also very involved with the
St Mary’s church and contributed to and helped with the creation of St Mary’s chapel.
He enjoyed entertaining friends and seeing family at Millstones. Especially enjoying a game of
croquet. He was kind, sensitive, thoughtful, very welcoming and sociable, loved having his
family around him. He was a great conversationalist always having a good listening ear. He was
also the most polite and appreciative man, an observation that many have made. He continually
thanked people for any small thing that they did for him. One lovely
young Doctor at Bognor said he was the only person to have ever
said ‘well done’ to her and she would never forget it. He cherished
Alison at all times and they had a long and happy marriage lasting
63 years and have never had a serious cross word between them.
Amongst the things he has passed on to the next generation is a
strong sense of right and wrong, of the importance of behaving with
decency to others, of duty and honour but also a great sense of
humour with fun and enjoyment. To sum up he was a wonderful
husband, brother, father, uncle, grandfather and great grandfather
and friend and the legacy he leaves behind is considerable, as he has
enriched our lives in so many ways by being part of them and
therefore never leaving us.