Ernest George Western's obituary in the "Times" of August 19, 1969:
"Mr. George Western, the piano-playing member of the Western Brothers variety partnership, died at Weybridge, Surrey on Saturday. He was 74 and had been ill for some weeks.
"His partner Kenneth, who was really his cousin, created the lyrics for their act, while George composed the music. Their partnership, started in 1925, lasted until Kenneth's death in 1963.
"Their stock-in-trade comprised immaculate evening dress, the school tie, monocle and the catch phrase "Play the game, you cads", uttered in a drawling voice.
"The humour of the Western Brothers depended on a social situation which no longer exists. They were, they pretended, the bad boys who had succeeded in passing through a public school unaffected by its character-training, its ethos and its moral code.
"They had not themselves been educated at public schools, but their mockery of public school standards was admiringly affectionate. Their elegance, their monocled arrogance and their class, deliberate rather than phoney, accents lost their amusing relevance at some point in the late 1940s.
"George Western, the shorter and less bulky than his stage 'brother', matched his partner's lyrics with catchy if not very memorable tunes which owed a great deal to the tradition of the music hall. He sat at the piano against which his partner negligently leaned. George shared with Kenneth the ability to convince audiences in the days before television "satire" but their entirely good-humoured, cleverly timed act, innocent of any possible effect, was somehow an impudent mockery of the establishment. At the same time they showed that even the raffish n'er-do-well found its standards inescapable.
"The real criticism, though it was neither profound nor violent, was aimed at those who did not accept the loyalties and the codes which social tradition had sanctified. To them, their act was all a joke, but it was a joke growing out of social realities which they shared with audiences of all classes. George's music meant much to it, for it was entirely static and as effective by radio as it was in the theatre.
"Six years ago, with the death of his stage brother, George started a new career, a far cry from the glamorous microphone or stage years - he took over a sweet and tobacco kiosk at Weybridge station. He was still running the kiosk until his last illness."
