Arthur Furmiston1919 – 2007
A Marlow boy, Arthur’s cabinet making apprenticeship was interrupted by the war. Captured at Dunkirk he endured the rest of that time in Polish prisoner of war camps. In 1948, by now married to Gwen, Arthur arrived at The Lee as chauffeur/gardener at The Manor and transferred with Arthur Stewart-Liberty to Pipers. He retired in 1984. Arthur was a hugely kind and gentle man with a rare twinkle, very sparky and beloved by all who knew him. He suffered the little children to come to him, not half he didn’t, and four such were Richard, Oliver, Francesca and Fiona Stewart-Liberty, who grew up at Pipers in the decades after the war. They have every reason to remember Arthur with love and gratitude.
What follows is an excerpt from Richard’s tribute given to a full church at Arthur’s funeral on Friday 21st December.
“For small children, life at Pipers was pretty good… and Arthur made it even better.
Sometimes the two Arthurs would drive to London and sometimes I went with them. This was before the Hanger Lane interchange and imaginative alternative routes were researched, one of which led past the front gate of Wormwood Scrubs. On the approach I was instructed most urgently to hide or adopt immediate disguise; put on one Arthur’s bowler, smoke a pipe, wear the other Arthur’s peaked hat, anything to avoid recognition by the authorities within.
I stand before you scarred for life by such experiences.
All families go through stormy passages and ours was no different. At these times for the four of us the potting shed was a haven. Apart from the man within, it was the smell which none of us will forget: oilcans, boot polish, nails in tobacco tins, tools, Golden Virginia, stored apples and the scent of the man himself. The place should have been lifted straight out to the Geffrye Museum.
Inside it’s difficult to say what magic was dispensed or how. Except that it was. Punctures were repaired, hunting boots were polished, torrential uninterruptible speeches were delivered in what we were informed was Polish, and cigarettes were rolled with those thumbs that didn’t work very well. Very determined to have a smoke Arthur must have been. And the world outside would come up roses again.
In the last few years I have delivered a few vegetables I have grown to Arthur and Gwen and we have giggled at the role reversal of it all. Today I’m proud to have chauffeured Gwen to Arthur’s service."