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Name: CORMACK, Gordon Findlay
Birth Date: 17 Oct 1904 Edinburgh
Death Date: 30 July 1976 Bulawayo
First Date: 1926
Profession: c/o Smith Mackenzie Co.; accountant
Area: Nairobi, Mombasa
Married: In Mombasa 1935 Joan Elizabeth Banfield b. 28 Mar 1911 Durban, d. 1974 Salisbury, Rhodesia
Children: Ian Graeme (10 Oct 1935 Mombasa-20 Aug 2012 Mutare, Zimbabwe); Morag (Marinoni) (2.Nov 1943 Tanga); Gordon Bruce (6 Apr 1945 Tanga-30 Dec 2007 Pietermaritzburg); Shelagh (19 May 1947 Nairobi)
Book Reference: Red 31
General Information:
Morag Marinoni (daughter) GFC was a Chartered Accountant who attended a good school named George Heriots,in Edinburgh, the only one of his parents' children who had a full education as they were poor. They recognised Gordon's potential and somehow found the money to pay for his further education. He started work as an accountant for a Shipping Company in Edinburgh, then, on the toss of a coin between him and a colleague, he was sent to Mombasa and the colleague to somewhere else. The separation from his strict Baptist family proved to be unfortunate.
He was known always as 'Mac'. In Mombasa, Mac met my mother. The distance from the teetotal Cormacks proved Mac's downfall; he became an alcoholic and his addiction meant he would find and then fall out of work on a regular basis. I am not sure of his "career" path. Mombasa for a while, then he definitely had his own Contracting company for a while after he left the Shipping company and he and his wife had a lot of money for a while but he gambled it away with Greek friends. He worked in many places: Mombasa, Nairobi, Songhor, Dar-es-Salaam, Mpanda, Njombe, Uvinza, Tukuyu, Matanana Ranch near Iringa in Tanganyika (accountant for the Ricardo's), then lastly at Kilosa, Soroti and Lira in Uganda with East African Railways as an accountant from 1959 until end of Dec. 1962, the longest he spent with any company while I knew him. Mac left EA for good that December, drove the family (apart from me), down to South Africa via Tanzania and Malawi. I had married and remained with my husband who was also working for EAR in Uganda.
Keen Mombasa soccer and rugby player.
East African Standard 12 Apr 1930 Dislocated a bone in his neck in a rugby practice in Mombasa. Due to go on leave in Feb, but this has been postponed to May. [Cormack recovered from this injury.]