Alcester bids a fond farewell to George Higgins
THE funeral has taken place of one of Alcester’s best-known characters – George Higgins – who was given a fond farewell on the town’s streets as he was taken in a horse-drawn glass carriage to a service at St Nicholas Church.
George, aged 79, often joked he thought he’d died and gone to heaven when he left Birmingham to live in Alcester.
His first home was with his sister and her husband in Oversley Green before he moved to a one-bedroomed flat in Malt Mill Lane, Alcester, over 20 years ago.
He was well-known for cooking Christmas Day dinners for elderly singletons in the town after they had all paid a visit to the pub beforehand.
David Parkes of Hemming & Peace Funeral Services, which organised last Friday’s procession around the streets of Alcester before the church service, said George was a “nice old boy everybody knew.”
“He was very well known and had his own corner in the Holly Bush called ‘George’s Corner’. He drank there for years and at the Cross Keys, the Royal Oak and the Conservative Club.
“He was previously married and had children. After his sister moved to Spain with her husband, George would visit and really enjoy his holiday time with them.
“When he was healthier he would cook Christmas dinners for his friends and I got invited once because I’d been working that day and eight of us crowded around table in his flat. On this occasion, a chair someone was sitting on collapsed and the diner had to carry on eating wedged in behind the table. They’d been to the pub so it was probably quite a merry old time anyway,” David said.
His sister attended last Friday’s funeral which processed from the Grieg Hall to Alcester Town Hall and past his flat in Malt Mill Lane and along High Street where shopkeepers paid their respects from doorways.
His sister said: “George would have loved to know he was ‘famous’.”
A final farewell to George, who passed away on 31st March, was conducted at Redditch Crematorium.
