George Simons was born on November 4, 1923 into a loving family and educated in the suburb of Brightside in Sheffield. He was nurtured from childhood in the Methodist Church and introduced to Jesus Christ, his Saviour and friend, by faithful Sunday school teachers. He was encouraged to witness and serve by ministers in the Sheffield Mission. This involved teaching in the Sunday school, helping in youth work and speaking at open air meetings. Whilst working in the office of Sheffield Steel Works he felt called to preach and so he studied for his local preachers’ exams with the help of Cliff College correspondence courses, being recognised as a local preacher in 1943.          
George had joined the Methodist Peace Fellowship in 1939 and he registered as a conscientious objector in 1942. His National Service involved two and a half years serving in the National Fire Service in Manchester, Sheffield and Dorset (in the run-up to D-Day) followed by two and a half years working for the National Coal Board down a Yorkshire coal mine as a Bevan Boy, for which he later received a medal.
Accepted for the Methodist ministry in 1944, George began his studies whilst working down the mines. He worked the 2 to 10pm shift so that he was free to study in the mornings and preach at mission services on Sundays. He was released from the mine in 1947 and then served a year of pre-collegiate probation in Kirkoswald, Cumbria.
There followed two happy years at Headingly College from 1948 to 1950 where he met his lifelong friend, Rev. Clifford Bell. On August 12, 1950 George married Joan Larcombe, a fellow worker in the Sheffield Mission and together they shared a full and varied itinerant ministry which would last for 40 years until Joan’s death in March 1991.
George’s final year of probation was spent in the Liverpool Crosby circuit. He was ordained at the Sheffield Conference in 1951 and then served in the following circuits: Goole, Lowestoft, Birmingham (Elmdon), Birkenhead, Nottingham (West), Hoylake and West Kirby, and Dunstable, being superintendent in the last three appointments.
            Kathryn, their daughter, was born in Goole, and Andrew was born in Lowestoft. During his active ministry, George served variously as a school governor, District membership secretary, District Home Mission secretary and as a member of the Connexional membership committee. Running youth clubs and Bible groups was a recurrent emphasis of his ministry – as was playing Father Christmas in local schools!
            In 1989, he sat down, moving with Joan to the Reading and Silchester circuit. There he was active as a local preachers’ tutor and as a tutor for ministerial candidates preparing for the Biblical Studies paper through the Open Learning Centre. George continued to preach into his 90th year. He was a member of the Fellowship of the Kingdom for over 50 years, enjoying discussions with FK members and greatly benefitting from their mutual support.
            George was a life-long supporter of Sheffield United FC and enjoyed watching football in general. Plants and gardens gave him great pleasure – both his own and those of the National Trust – while his encyclopaedic knowledge and experience of the United Kingdom led to him being described as a “walking road atlas”. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2015, but carried on living independently in Woodley, Reading until January 2019 when he moved into the Berkshire care home, in Wokingham, where he ended his days very peacefully on May 9, 2020, aged 96, leaving a son, Andrew, daughter and son-in-law Kate and Alex, two grandchildren and two great grandchildren.