J SH 1945 - 1948
Sad news has reached us from the family of Michael Giles, that he passed away on 23rd June 2021, aged 89 years. Our thoughts and condolences are with the family at this sad time. The thanksgiving service hosted in July allowed happy memories to be shared.
His ‘Old Order Changeth’ in The Star 1948 reads:
Thomas Michael Giles joined Cambray, Junior School in 1945 and left from School House in 1948.
Sports—2nd XI 1948, 2nd XV 1948-9.
Member—Literary Society, Junior Debating, Drama Society, Young Farmers Club.
THOMAS MICHAEL GILES (1931 – 2021)
Eulogy by Peter Kemp
It’s said that you choose your friends, but you’re saddled with your family. Mike was my first cousin, and I can truthfully say that, if he’d not been family, I’d have chosen him as a friend. If Mike had been a consumer product, he’d have been a marketing man’s dream – for unlike Marmite, everyone loved him!
Thomas Michael Giles was born to Percy Kenith Townsley Giles and his wife Mary Enid (née Thomas) on 8 October 1931. He was born in Glamorganshire, in the village of Pennard, on the south of the Gower Peninsula, and, to the end of his days, Mike remained fiercely proud of his Welsh heritage. It’s for this reason that you’ll hear ‘Land of my Fathers’ at the close of today’s service. When he was born he already had a brother, David, some four-and-a-half years his senior. The boys grew up during wartime. In September 1939, aged forty-three, their father Kenith was no longer eligible for conscription, so he remained at home and joined the Home Guard, the real ‘Dad’s Army’. The family kept rabbits – several hundreds of them – as well as racing pigeons and spaniels. These became Mike’s responsibility and no doubt his love of animals was born of this experience. Indeed, it’s only a pity ‘Horace’ the tortoise couldn’t be with us here today.
In 1945, at the age of thirteen, Mike was sent to board at Wycliffe College in Gloucestershire, leaving at some point during the Spring term of 1949. While not distinguishing himself in the realm of academia, he joined the school’s Literary Society, Junior Debating Society, Drama Society and the Young Farmers’ Club. Moreover, in view of his later adult passion for cricket and rugby, it’s interesting to note that at Wycliffe he was a member of both the 2nd XI and 2nd XV teams. It was during his time at Wycliffe that an early ‘entrepreneurial’ streak emerged.
At a time when sweets were still rationed, but not cigarettes, Mike brought in supplies of both to sell to his fellow students, at weekends cycling to the local shops to supplement his bill of fare with chips and ice cream. Whether it was this nascent building of a business empire that was rumbled, or his being caught playing tennis with the Headmaster’s daughter, when he should have been in detention, we will never know; his school records are silent on the subject. Believe me – I’ve checked! At any event, Mike did not complete his time at Wycliffe, though vehemently denied he was expelled. His version of this sorry tale was that he headed hotfoot to his father to warn him to expect a letter from the Headmaster that might contain distressing content. Setting the tone for their future in business together, his father observed of Mike’s time at Wycliffe: “In the end, your honesty outweighs your stupidity. You have learned to communicate well with people in all walks of life that will stand you in good stead. I am proud of you, son.”
Of course, it’s now quite clear to me why my parents considered Mike’s brother David to be a far safer pair of hands as my Godfather.
While David did his National Service with the Royal Navy, and stayed with them, Mike proudly did his two years with the Royal Air Force – ‘The Brylcreem Boys’, as he called them – and then left for Civvy Street.
With no academic qualifications to his name, Mike’s early jobs included selling lawnmowers – where he would mow a demonstration zigzag across a lawn and only finish the job if the client bought the machine – and vacuum cleaners. It’s believed he also worked as a salesman for Knitmaster knitting machines, who would later become a supplier to the family sewing machine business.
At some stage, Mike and his father joined forces to buy a hand-operated sewing machine, which they converted to electric and then sold. This venture looked promising and they opened their first shop in Worcester’s Friar Street, converting more manual machines to electric and selling them. At a time when Singer Sewing Machines dominated the market and had many franchisee outlets around the country, the Messrs Giles took the bold step of becoming what is believed to have been the first independent stockist of all sewing machines other than Singer. Ironically, on the Kemp side of the family, my father’s sister was married … to a sales director of Singer! The Giles business model proving successful, father and son quickly expanded to new shops in Kidderminster, Bromsgrove and Weston-Super-Mare, all under the umbrella name of ‘Modern Home Equipment Ltd’. The move to Taunton and premises in Billet Street (now occupied by Sainsbury’s) followed in 1960. Mike and his father also bought a flooding-prone shop in Taunton’s Station Road selling baby clothes, and named it ‘Bredons’ after the Worcestershire hill that could be seen from the family’s former home. Much later, during the 1970s, when Bredons extended their product range to become exclusive suppliers of school uniforms to most of the Taunton schools, a very youthful Steve, Andy and Peter recall, with a distinct lack of joy, spending their Sunday mornings at the Station Road shop ‘helping’ with the repair of flooring, putting up shelves or stocktaking. Upon Giles senior’s retirement, the business was eventually consolidated in Taunton at the single shop, ‘Bredons’, in East Reach. In 1987 Mike was joined by Steve; yet, despite this, Bredons continues successfully to this day. Only in very recent years did Mike gradually withdraw from running the family shop, when his increasing frailty obliged him to hand over the reins full time to Steve. During the last eighteen months Mike’s illness became more marked, but he bore it with as much dignity as the condition allowed and he retained his strong sense of humour right to the end.
Indeed, it was his humour, as much as his puckish smile and the twinkle in his eye that will remain in our collective minds’ eye. How appropriate, therefore, that even his name, Thomas Michael Giles, anagrams into ‘Oh! The magical smiles’.
On 31 December 1959, Mike married Sylvia Inwood and, in due course, they welcomed their three sons into the world – Stephen, Andrew and Peter. Yet, despite the sadness of later events, Sylvia remained the love of Mike’s life. He was immensely and justifiably proud of his three boys and saw them frequently to the very end of his life. He was further blessed with two grandchildren, Charlotte and Olly, as well as four step-grandchildren, William and Amy and Charlotte and Bayley. How unspeakably sad it is it that he was not granted just a few more months so he could welcome Charlotte and Harvey’s daughter, his first great-grandchild. But he alone was told her name … the rest of us will just have to wait!
My parents absolutely adored Mike and Sylvia and the feeling was mutual. Many was the time Mike’s delivery of machines throughout the home counties would quite remarkably take him right past the front door of 8 Westbury Road in Northwood, Middlesex. Naturally, to save on hotel expenses, Mike would stay overnight, enjoying generous tumblers of whisky with my otherwise largely teetotal father. I shall never forget the support Dad and I received from this dear and gentle man when my mother died in 1999.
On the occasion of my own seventieth birthday in 2017, Mike wrote to me in that characteristic style that so endeared him to me and which typified our relationship.
“I cannot believe you are 70 years old. I’d have thought it only about some 60-plus years when I used to come up to see your Dad and my very special auntie. In actual fact, you were a bit of a nuisance to me, because up to that time I had always been your mother’s favourite!! Long before you arrived we’d go and see my lovely aunt in Swansea. She used to take me up to her bedroom and paint me up like a little girl!! (No comments, thank you!!) A few years later, your Mum and Dad bought a lovely house. I guess you would have been about 4 – 5 years old. He also bought a big American car […] and we used to go to the suppliers of the stuff we wanted. All this time I had to look after you, especially in the car. It didn’t have a roof on it and you, you horrible child, would try and dive out of it, even when we were moving – and my job was to make sure you sat down and stayed sitting whilst we would be moving. (I perhaps made a mistake there!!).”
Although Mike’s life revolved around business and family, his other great love was sport. He was founder, player, captain and organiser of the Taunton Mallards Cricket Club; he was also a keen supporter of Taunton Rugby, President of Somerset Stragglers Cricket Club and organiser of the Mallards Skittles Club, where he played until recently. The family understands that there will be a minute’s silence in Mike’s memory before the Somerset Stragglers match against the MCC this summer.
But old habits die hard and in the fortnight since he was taken from us – always provided he didn’t have an argument with the Recording Angel – I’d be surprised if Mike hadn’t already started recruiting for a ‘Heaven’s XI’.
From all of us who knew and loved you – thank you, old friend.
