My brother-in-law Charles Green, who has died aged 63 from complications following surgery, worked for the probation service for 37 years. Privately, he was a jack of all trades, and master of most.
The second child of Ernest, a printer, and his wife, Nita, a nurse, Charles was born and grew up in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, where he attended Alleyne’s grammar school (now known as the Thomas Alleyne Academy). From his parents, stalwarts of both the Bunyan Baptist church and the Labour party, Charles absorbed a strong tradition of duty to others. After studying social policy at Hull University, he qualified in social work in Bath, where his future wife, my sister Deborah, was training to be a nurse. They married in 1980.
Charles’s nascent career with the probation service took the couple to London. After living in Brixton, East Dulwich and Colliers Wood, they settled in Walthamstow, where the family, and Charles’s portfolio of community service, began to grow.
He was for years the main organist at the Lighthouse Methodist church (he also played the cello). As property steward, he fixed every kind of domestic appliance, taking on myriad DIY tasks across 12 churches and eight manses in the Forest Methodist circuit. At home, he made marmalade; could turn a shirt collar; supplemented the family diet with the fruits of his allotment, and was known as the family’s “bicycle repair man”. When his daughter Esther was born unexpectedly in the hallway at home, it was Charles, inevitably, who served as midwife.
Deploying an encyclopedic knowledge of London’s public transport network, Charles could tell you which carriage on the tube stopped nearest the stairs at any given station. Play him random snatches of classical music and he would unfailingly name the composer. He also read a broad range of fiction, and was fond of poetry.
Charles was a much-valued colleague throughout his years in the probation service, his last position being senior probation officer, North London Victim Services. In this period he also became a huge fan of the “Boris bike”. Escaping his desk in Victoria, he would cycle to Battersea Park in his lunch break – just, as he said, for the pleasure of the exercise, and to see some trees.
The transport theme was continued on family holidays; in the early years these were spent in Beer, east Devon, but as the children grew older, the adventures grew bigger. Driving to Corfu and back in 2013, the entire family passed through France, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia and finally Greece, in their ageing Vauxhall Astra estate, navigated, naturally, by Charles.
Charles is survived by Deborah and their children, Jacob, Luke and Esther; and by his sister, Marion, and brother, Jim.
