Mr Montfort Bebb, who died peacefully at his Cuckfield home on July 25 aged 85, was a stockbroker all his working life and a senior partner in the former city firm of J&A Scrimgeour until he retired in 1986.

Before joining the firm in 1950, he had left Winchester College as war threatened and joined the Oxford University Air Squadron to train as a pilot.

In the RAF, as a flight lieutenant, he was posted to Canada in 1942 where he spent two years training allied air crews. Back in the UK towards the end of the war, he flew Lancaster bombers over Germany and Italy to repatriate service personnel.

In 1946 at Claridge's in London he met his future wife, Adonia, at a debutante's coming out ball and they married in 1949.

In 1960 they moved to Broxmead Lane in Cuckfield where they lived for 19 years before moving to Ockenden Lane.

The couple had four sons and a daughter: Jamie, Gordon, Sabrina, Andrew and Torquil and nine grandchildren.

After his retirement Mr Montfort Bebb devoted his spare time from 1992 to 2003 to the Royal British Legion, Cuckfield Branch, working as its secretary and organising its Poppy Day collections.

His widow, Adonia, who would have celebrated her diamond wedding next year, said: "My husband was a very funny man; he was very amusing, not in a Benny Hill sort of way but he had a dry wit."

A thanksgiving service will be held on August 22 at Holy Trinity Church, Cuckfield, at 10.30am, coinciding with the annual family and friends cricket match that Mr Montfort Bebb started at Cuckfield Cricket Club exactly 20 years ago.

Donations, if wished, for the Royal British Legion, Cuckfield Branch, should be sent c/o P&S Gallagher, Fraser House, Triangle Road, Haywards Heath, RH 16 4HW.

Full report in the Mid Sussex Times

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