TRIBUTES have been paid to a much-loved great grandad who as a child in the late 1920s ended up in the York workhouse with the rest of his family when his father died.

York man George Bye passed away at Rosevale Care Home on November 22, aged 98.

He was born on March 12, 1923, the son of George Smith and Alice Bye and as a young boy lived in the York Union Children’s Home in Wigginton Road. He attended Haxby Road School.

Back in 2011 The Press took a dip into Mr Bye’s memoirs, as published in a magazine article Those Were The Days – Thank God, about a quarter of a century ago.

Easter, 1937 was George’s 14th birthday. He had left school, and was still living at the children’s home.

“I was summoned by the Matron,” his account goes.

“I was given a suitcase and some new clothes: riding breeches, leggings, wellingtons, pyjamas, shirts, socks, etc, and then told I was being sent away to work on a farm, where I would have to remain for two years. The alternative was a Borstal institution for four years. So, it wasn’t a case of ‘will you?’ or ‘would you like to?’… I was going, and that was that!”

He was taken to Piccadilly, put on a bus to a bridge near Bielby, and told to wait there for a Mr Reynolds. “Sure enough, a man eventually appeared on a horse-drawn cart loaded with muddy carrots.”

George lived on a camp bed in an old hen house, with Joe Walker, a boy a year older than him, who was to “show him the ropes”.

“This was our quarters, where, as I was about to find out, I was to sleep after working from dawn until dusk, seven days a week, pulling carrots and looking after poultry and other livestock – all for 6d a week.”

He stuck this “grinding existence” for six weeks before deciding to run away. When the farmer and his son took the pony and trap into Pocklington, as they did every Thursday, George took his chance. He legged it for the road with a suitcase of clothes, and was lucky enough to be offered a lift into York. But then he had no idea what to do next.

“I had no money, of course, so I set off to walk to the only place I could think of to go to – 75 Huntington Road, the Workhouse, where I found myself back in Ladysmith Block.”

Years later George joined the army and in the Second World War served in Belgium, Germany and France.

He married his first wife, Elsie Bristow, in 1945 and they had two children, Michael and Christine. Sadly Elsie passed away in George’s arms on September 3, 1994. They have four grand children and eight great grandchildren.

George worked at Blundy Clarks Coal Merchant, Rowntrees Chocolate Factory, for Whittakers bread as a delivery van driver and latterly Ben Johnsons printing factory, retiring in 1986.

In later life he married his second wife, Ida in 2006, but she sadly died a year later.

His granddaughter, Karen Austin-Hillery, said: "He was a real family man and will be known by a lot of people in York. He was such a happy man, and a practical joker really, trying to make people smile."

George also raised around £3,000 for Candlelighters, the children's cancer charity making crosses in his spare time.

George's funeral will be held at York Baptist Church, Priory Street, on Monday (December 6) at 12.30pm, and burial at Fulford Cemetery at 2pm.