John Patrick Townsend (656)
| Date of Birth: | 1914 |
|---|---|
| Date of Death: | 1985 |
| Generation: | 8th |
| Residence: | Arusha, Tanganyika and Howick, South Africa |
| Father: | Aubrey Lewis Hume Townsend [652] |
| Mother: | Winter, Norah Alicia |
| Spouse: |
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| Issue: | |
| See Also: | Table VI ; Scrapbook ; Lineage ; Ancestors' Tree ; Descendents' Tree |
Notes for John Patrick Townsend (Pat)
Pat was born in Nakuru, Kenya and educated by his father.
Scheduled for deployment to Burma during World War II, Pat was sent instead to work on a farming scheme with Italian POWs growing groundnuts.
Pat married Cecily Ray Brown in Nairobi and moved to Arusha, Tanganyika after the war ended. There, he established a business, Townsends Ltd, for the repair and maintenance of farm machinery. It was while working on a baler that he was very badly burnt and had to spend many months in hospital, later recuperating on the coast with his family.
Having fully recovered Pat competed as a rally driver in what was originally known as the Coronation Rally and later the East African Safari Rally. He moved to South Africa with his family, including his mother, in 1965 and lived in Sarnia, a suburb in KwaZulu-Natal. He finally settled in Howick, where he kept himself busy in his workshop and tended his bees until his death from prostate cancer in 1985.