Tributes paid to former PHG and Sikh community leader

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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Tributes paid to former councillor and Sikh community leader


A former councillor and Sikh community leader has been hailed as a "true gentleman" following his death.

Jagir Singh Dhillon, of Waye Avenue, Cranford, represented his home ward on Hounslow Council from 1998 to 2002 and was on the executive committee of the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, in Hounslow.

The father of four, who had nine grandchildren and six great grandchildren, died of heart failure on May 21, aged 88, in the house where he had lived for nearly 50 years.

His son Sarbjit Dhillon said: "Everyone I've spoken to about dad says how he was a true gentleman. He was a very humble man, who was always very smart and never argued; he was always the mediator.

"He used to have an open door policy at home and people would come to him for advice or if they needed letters written because they couldn't read English. He was still helping people in his 80s."

Sarbjit told how his father was born in a small village in modern day Pakistan and travelled to Amritsar, in India, following the partition.

There he taught English and sports at the prestigious Khalsa College and coached the Punjab football team.

He came to England in 1966 with £3 in his pocket and took three jobs, working long hours, to raise the money to bring his family over and buy a house.

Sarbjit said his father arrived in the country just after England had won the World Cup and, not knowing what had happened in the tournament, was initially bemused by how happy everyone appeared.

"Dad saw everyone celebrating and enjoying themselves and assumed it was just a very happing, fun-loving country at first," added Sarbjit.

In England, Jagir worked for 20 years as a 'postman higher grade' - a middle ranking position within the postal service - at the Mount Pleasant Mail Centre in Clerkenwell.

Mr Dhillon's funeral will take place at South West Middlesex Crematorium on Tuesday (June 2) at 12.40pm. Anyone is welcome to attend. His family have requested any donations in his memory to be made to the building fund at the gurdwara.

[El-Bandito]

R.I.P Jagir Singh Dhillon.