It was with great sadness that I learned of George’s death. Jenny and the whole of his family have my deep sympathy at this sad time. He will be much missed by many of the people with whom he worked over the years, and from recent times by large numbers of former colleagues in the International School of Geneva (Ecolint) and the IB. Having followed him into those two bodies – as director-general at Ecolint and as a Governor of the IB – I quickly learned of the huge respect and affection in which he was held within both organisations and the major contribution he had made to each of them.

He was very supportive to me when I took over at Ecolint two years after he had moved to the IB, at a difficult time in its history. He remained in close touch with the school, for which he had the greatest affection, contributing to the study of its distinguished past through his excellent short biography of our feisty predecessor Marie-Thérèse Maurette and through the help he gave to the new history of the school I later commissioned.  He wrote copiously, fluently, wisely and often passionately and will have influenced many people in the world of international education who never had the pleasure of meeting him. 

My last meeting with him was a few years ago over lunch at a London restaurant when one current Ecolint DG (Vicky Tuck) and two former DGs (George and myself) met, at Vicky’s invitation, to help in handing over the baton of this distinguished school to its future, and now current, DG (David Hawley). It was a pleasant and, I hope, useful occasion, above all because of George. We spoke at one point about how we would all meet again at the time of the school’s centenary in 2024. Sadly, at least for one of us, that is no longer to be, but it will be nonetheless an occasion at which, I know, George will be remembered once again for who he was and what he achieved. He was a good man who strove throughout his life, in the true spirit of the mission statements of Ecolint and the IB, to make the world a better place.