George’s shop in Grafton Road

GEORGE Bartlett, who has died aged 85, ran a glaziers with his wife for more than 50 years.

He lived in Glenhurst Avenue, near Parliament Hill Lido, for years with Pat and the couple opened the GL Bartlett shop in Grafton Road, Kentish Town, in 1970.

He was remembered this week for always having a smile on his face and his lifelong love of a punt on the nags.

Pat said: “We met in a bus social dance in Turnpike Lane. What would happen at the dances was that people would come over to you and ask you if you wanted to dance. I met him at that social – he asked me to dance, and we were together ever since.”

She added: “That’s the way people used to meet – not like they do these days on the Twitters and Facebooks.”

George Bartlett

Mr Bartlett went into the army aged 18 for national service later getting a job at John Halls in St Pancras Way, where he was training to be a glazier.

From there he went to work at the Price Glass shop in Elthorne Road, Archway, before opening his own business with Pat in Kentish Town.

She said: “I never knew anything about glass but I picked it all up – I even cut the glass as well. So that’s how we started, just the two of us. And we built it up over the years.

“He loved his job, and when we moved up to Potters Bar he wasn’t quite the same. He liked a little bet – his betting was his main salvation.

“We like to go dancing, and for outings at the Railway Club up near Glenhurst Avenue, it’s not there anymore. We’d also play bingo.”

She said the couple took holidays to the South of France over the years and also with the grandchildren on caravan trips to the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. Pat said she had decided to keep the shop open in Grafton Road. Son-in-law, Derek, said George had been “like a father to

me” for many years, adding: “We never had one cross word the whole time we was working together. He was a generous guy, to a fault.

“He loved to bet and would have been in every bookies in Camden. Sometimes we would be putting a bit of glass in and he’d say something like ‘I’m just shooting down the road Del, won’t be a sec’. He loved the spring doubles, the early flat season.”

George leaves behind his three daughters Deb, Jo and Jacky. The funeral is in Oakhill Lawn Cemetery, Southway, Hatfield, on November 10.