We REJECT the Council’s plan for The Gower. GHEF remains committed to re-establishing The Gower building as an asset to the community.

Bill Hotchkiss, Memories of ‘The Gower’

Bill Hotchkiss memories of ‘The Gower’

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 As a lad born at Red Lake hospital, brought up in Oakengates and Trench, St. George’s was just a small village on top of a big hill that was always in the way of where I wanted to go. Cosford, Dawley, Shifnal, Sheriffhales and many more destinations all over the blooming hill. The only thing it gave me in the early years was my claim to fame. I climbed that hill from every direction in top gear with every bicycle I owned from fixed wheel to ten speed. From mountain bike to three speed. But still it was always in the way! Years later, at the tender age of nineteen, I was in the RAF and on annual leave from my posting in Cyprus. A friend of mine suggested we attend a youth club, in of all places, St Georges. We walked up that hill again much to my disgust and arrived at a place called ‘The Gower’. That was when my life totally changed and I met two, as I say now, beauty queens.

They were very friendly and I lost my heart to one of them called Rita Savidge. That evening I walked her home to No 4 Mosclay Road, and we met every night for the rest of my leave. I knew I had met my soul mate and that hill, well it became my favorite place on earth.

On my return to base we wrote every week for nine months until I returned home. Gone were my thoughts of exotic postings, I applied for RAF Cosford. That was the closest I could get to St Georges. Two years later two brothers, both in RAF uniform, called for the last drink of freedom for one of them, at the Talbot Inn. I married Rita on that day 23rd of March 1970.

Now 45 years later, the chapel we were married in, the hall we had our reception and the dearest love have all left this world. All that I have left is our two wonderful children and ‘’The Gower’.

—— R.I.P—–

Sadly, since this article was written our dear friend Bill has passed away

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