Colleagues said and wrote that George Willcocks had `an air of superiority', an impression accentuated by his stature and soldierly bearing. It was an ill-chosen phrase. George's memoirs recall that his father started in Devon as a stonemason's labourer and migrated first to South Africa. By the time the family had eventually settled in Brisbane where George was born, his father had completed contracts in mining and railway engineering. For George, Brisbane Grammar School led to Sydney University and two years' residency at Sydney Hospital. As soon as he had recovered from appendicitis in 1915 he sailed with a contingent for Gallipoli, but was first landed to attend an epidemic at Lemnos. Later posted to France, he served at Posieres, Bullecourt and Ypres, was mentioned in dispatches and awarded the Military Cross.

His memoirs of the war years, most of which he spent in the mud and cold of the front, are almost laconic. At Bapaume `I walked across the duckboards with new men, mostly elderly, who got tired and couldn't carry their packs. I carried the axes as we wanted to cut any wood we found (the dugouts had icicles hanging from the roof). I had a couple of new officers too - they thought they were doctors, not soldiers'. The memoirs are mainly a record of snatches away from the trenches. `I enjoyed myself riding around the country. Blackberries were on and I picked them from the hedges'. Hardly a word about his fellow officers, including IF Plant, LW Dunlop, TJ Frizell, J Donaldson, most of them killed in France. Not even a mention of his hip which he had injured in 1909 and was an increasing disability throughout the war years and for the rest of his life. He was not wounded and in 1918 was seconded to AIF Headquarters. War service ended with an award of the OBE and a place at St George's Hospital.

The following year George Willcocks, with Alan Holmes a' Court, obtained the MRCP. In the same year he met and married Dr Hilda Richards and in his words `We lived happily ever after'. Of the four Willcocks children one girl (now deceased) and one boy graduated in medicine and had fine careers.

Back in Sydney he became outpatient physician to Sydney Hospital, followed by appointments to Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Prince Henry, Western Suburbs and later Repatriation General Hospital. He was a member of the Association of Physicians and its honorary secretary when it finally decided on the formation of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians. He was president of the NSW branch of the BMA from 1945 to 1946.

George's words were few but telling. In one court case several colleagues had agreed that the patient's condition would resolve. However, when counsel asked if they had seen a similar patient get better they admitted they had not. George when asked said `Yes, I have seen the same man get better three times'. His philosophy was simple: `The important thing is the patient and if you don't know get someone to help'.

His seeming aloofness arose mainly from a finely honed sense of ethics now rare, which forbade the slightest hint that he would welcome any advantage from his service to the Hospital, be it from seeing patients in his rooms after their discharge from hospital or ingratiating himself with assistants who might one day be the source of referrals. It was coupled with a rejection of any concern for his affliction. He was a very modest, straightforward, courageous and stoical man unable to dissimulate or prevaricate, free from any scheming or spite, not readily given to small talk. His pleasures carried into adulthood were those of a country boy, fishing and enjoying the countryside. He told the story of a camping trip with his brother in which they shot a duck and hung it outside the tent. In rain squalls during the night they were slapped repeatedly by the wet duck as they left the tent.

Cricket played a great part in his life, from school captain to the University first XI to the AIF team after the War, and later to the University Veterans. His hip gave him hell but it didn't stop him. His great moment came when he `got Hobbs with a wrong'un' at Lords. George Willcocks simply was superior and it showed.