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Amusingly, this incident was brought up a few years later when George, by then in Egypt, was deputed to meet a prominent diplomat at the airport in Cairo. On the way back in the car, his wife remarked that standards had slipped in the Foreign Service examination - she had heard that someone had even been passed on the strength of his study of barn owls!
George's career in the Foreign Service was an eventful one. On the first day of war in 1939 he was transferred to the Ministry of Economic Warfare where he was Personal Assistant to the Head of the Intelligence Department. Then, after a spell at the Overseas Trade Department and Middle East Office, he worked in the Cabinet Office. While in Egypt from 1941-43, he was Private Secretary to Oliver Lyttelton (later Lord Chandos) and was involved in missions with British Ministers with Lord Swinton in West Africa and the then Harold Macmillan in North Africa. Towards the end of the war he accompanied Oliver Lyttelton to the USA and Canada on a mission dealing with food supplies to Britain.
The immediate post-war years saw George return to India when Principal Private Secretary to Sir Stafford Cripps, President of the Board of Trade. He accompanied him on a Cabinet Mission to India for discussions leading to Indian independence. It was during this trip that he had an unexpected unofficial encounter with Gandhi. While walking in the vicinity of his hotel, he was accosted from a passing car and offered a lift back up the hill, which he really did not need. However, the driver insisted, and on getting into the back he realised that he was sitting next to Mahatma Gandhi. George made several attempts at polite conversation with his fellow passenger, who acknowledged him but said nothing. Only later did he find out that this was Gandhi's weekly day of silence.
After a further trip as Secretary of a British Trade Mission to China, George entered the Treasury in 1947, and spent the next sixteen years in service there. In 1957 he became Financial Adviser to British High Commissioners in India and Ceylon and H.M. Ambassador in Burma. He was also the British Treasury Representative in South Asia from that year until 1962, which, to his delight, involved residence in India and extensive traveling throughout the sub-continent. He returned as Under Secretary at the Overseas Finance Division of the Treasury in 1963, the year in which he was appointed CMG (The Order of St Michael and St George
The following year he was transferred to the office of the Minister of Science and subsequently to the Department of Education and Science where he spent the rest of his career until retirement in 1971. In 1964 George had been looking for a house in Sussex, where he had grown up, but landed instead at Lake House near Ockley in Surrey, a place that many of us know so well. It was here that he was able to fulfill his conservation ambitions. He became an active member of the Surrey Bird Club and the then Surrey Trust for Nature Conservation, rising to become President of the latter in its current form as the Surrey Wildlife Trust. His work in establishing the Vann Lake Nature Reserve was recognised by a major award during European Conservation Year in 1970. He subsequently gave the Reserve to the Trust.
It was during his time at the DES that Blaker became aware of the way in which science and science education were underpinned by an implicit materialistic philosophy that he did not consider to be an intrinsic part of science. His informal conversations with other leading figures like Dr. Peter Leggett at Surrey and Sir Kelvin Spencer (formerly Chief Scientist at the Ministry of Power) at Exeter in the early 1970s led him to think of forming a network of scientists interested in the spiritual side of life. At about the same time Dr. Patrick Shackleton, Dean of Postgraduate Medicine at Southampton, was thinking along similar lines, and the two men were brought together by a Polish priest called Dr. Andrew Glazewski. After a day's meeting they decided to collaborate and founded the Scientific and Medical Network in 1973.
It was the first Network of its kind at a time when the word was scarcely used. It kept a low profile during its first years (when it was informally known as the Conspiracy) but the Network gradually emerged into the public eye by arranging the May Lectures in 1977, with the title 'Science, Mind and the Spirit of Man'. Among the speakers was Dr. E.F. Schumacher. The following year saw the first Mystics and Scientists conference with the Wrekin Trust, an event that celebrates its Silver Jubilee next year.
Following the death of Patrick Shackleton in 1976, George worked tirelessly for the Network as its sole honorary secretary until 1986, when he became its life President. He was actively involved in its work until a few days before his death. As members will know, he inspired the Spiritual Aspects of Life Group and hosted a number of meetings at Lake House. His last report appears in this issue. One of George's greatest passions was the week-long 'Wider Horizons' course for young people 18-25, which was held for many years at Emerson College in Sussex and which proved a turning point for so many of its students who were seeking a meaningful spiritual world-view.
In the early years George always gave the opening lecture, sharing 'a vision of the way the world could work, or does work, from a spiritual viewpoint'. It is reprinted in the Network volume Wider Horizons. He would set out a series of propositions about life and its significance for consideration, but was always careful not to impose his own views. He believed in the oneness of life, that the human being is primarily spiritual, and that life is about education and development in the broadest sense. He regarded death as a 'promotion' and was firmly convinced from his own experience that the soul continued its development in other realms. I remember him telling me shortly after the promotion of Sir George Trevelyan that he had 'seen' George who had intimated to him that his surroundings were more beautiful than he could have imagined and he was immensely excited about his prospects.
As his friends will attest, George had many remarkable personal qualities. He combined an incisive mind and a lapidary writing style with a great generosity of spirit and deep intuitive understanding. He was a man of great modesty, simplicity and humility, unremittingly kind and considerate in his dealings with others. His gentle humour was never far away. He had a profound faith in the spiritual capacities of humanity and fostered these qualities in others - especially the young - whenever he could. Equally strong was his concern for wildlife, and, dating from his time in India, for the fate of Tibet.
George married Richenda Buxton in 1938. She died in 1987 and he is survived by his daughter Jennifer and many devoted friends, who, like me, will remember him with the utmost affection and respect.
Peter Lorrimer www.scimednet.org
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