Obituary: Marlow tailor who suited spies and ice skating legend
8:40am Sunday 12th February 2012 in Where I Live By Jade Coulon
A TAILOR from Marlow who made ice skating suits for Christopher Dean and jackets for British spies, has died.
Trevor John Saint died aged 89 after suffering from Leukaemia.
He lived in Marlow his whole life and ran a tailoring business in the riverside town.
At 19-years-old, Mr Saint volunteered as an RAF gunner on Lancaster Bombers and completed missions in Berlin and Nuremberg as part of Squadron 514.
When the war finished, Mr Saint joined his fathers London business becoming a master tailor for some of the most famous and influential people in Britain including pop stars and spies.
Mr Saints eldest daughter Jennifer Price said: "He took great pride in what he did and great interest in the people he made suits for. He made clothes for a lot of very famous and important people, very high up ranking people in the RAF, pop stars, the poet laureate Sir John Betjeman and he even had to make a coat for a spy with a hole in it for his camera."
Mr Saint specialised in ice skating wear and regularly made competition costumes for champion skaters Christopher Dean and Robin Cousins.
Mrs Price said: "Torvill and Dean used to come down to Marlow and Christopher Deans mum used to have my son on her lap whilst Christopher was being fitted for his clothes."
In the 1980's, Mr Saint moved his business, Saint Durrant and Airey, to Marlow where he worked from the home he shared with his wife of 67 years, Meg.
Mr and Mrs Saint had two daughters, Jennifer, 60 and Elizabeth, 53 and six grandchildren which he spent holidays with in Spain. Jennifer describes him as "a very hands on grandparent."
Mr Saint, who attended Sir William Borlase Grammar School, was heavily involved with All Saints Church and sang with the choir for 60 years.
Mrs Price said: "His father was a Lay-Preacher at the Congregational Church and my father used to go and do the organ pump, he used to be behind the organ pumping the bellows as a boy, it's there he became interested in singing.
"Singing was one of his great passions."
Mr Saint spent many years with the Marlow Gilbert and Sullivan Operatic Society putting on local opera productions.
He was also part of the Royal Observer Corps after the war and St John's Ambulance Service.
Mrs Price describes her father as very thoughtful. She said: "He was a gentleman, a very gentle person, very kind and thoughtful and very interested in everything going on in the world."
A funeral service for Mr Saint will be held on February 16 at the Chilterns Crematorium in Amersham at 11am, followed by a memorial service at All Saints Church in Marlow at 12 noon.
