Henry Gourlay McCreath married Patricia Foley. They had three daughters:
Jennifer McCreath born 1941
Susan Jane McCreath born 1947
Judith Mary McCreath born 1948)
“Henry McCreath, in his time one of the best-known grain merchants in Britain, died at 99. A keen, and excellent, batsman for Berwick in his prime, he would have appreciated the irony of falling just short of a deserved century, although his health had failed in the past two or three years.
Thankfully, well into his 90s, he was dismissing any offers of help to clear his snow-filled drive, preferring to shovel himself, and was as assiduous as ever in his attendance at Remembrance Day ceremonies as well as visiting local schools.
In many ways Henry’s passing was the last link with old-style grain trading, when malting barley was the supreme crop in the Borders and Northumberland and corn-exchange days and merchants visiting farms were the way business was done.
Deals were made as farmer and Henry took handfuls of grain from sacks in a granary, assessing quality by bite, sight and feel, and bargains made at so many shillings (old money) a quarter (confusingly to us youngsters, four cwts or one fifth of a ton). When a further conversation was necessary, my father always reckoned that from his Berwick office Henry’s baritone could have reached him without using the phone.
Henry didn’t talk much, if at all, about his experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war or, something I didn’t find out until a “Northumberland at War” exhibition a few years ago, that he was also a veteran of Dunkirk”.
Adapted from the Southern Reporter (2015):