My father, Austin Hobbs, who has died aged 91, was an old-fashioned bank manager whose work took him to the agricultural and coastal communities of the south-west. He started work for the National Provincial Bank, later NatWest, in 1952, at a time when statements were still handwritten and posted from local branches.
Austin was born on a farm in North Tawton, Devon, the fourth of five brothers. When the family moved to Morwenstow in north Cornwall, he remained in Devon as a boarder at Okehampton grammar school, and in 1949 did national service in the army, an immensely formative period that he considered his university education. His first journey east of Exeter ultimately took him through the Suez canal to Mogadishu in Somalia and later to Cyprus with the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry.
He had a natural talent for sport, and back in the UK played full-back for Launceston rugby club and captained a Cornish youth team. He was renowned for his placekicking. When his boot brought victory in a close match, the local newspaper ran the headline “Hobbs does it again”.
