August 1986

Joseph Sacks

Joseph Sacks 29 August 1919 to 30 August 1989 and Jessie Marie Sacks (nee White) 12 October 1912 to 26 August 1986.

Loyal Life-Long West Ham United Supporter, Joe used to have a Tobacconists in Forrestgate and supplied the West Ham United Football Club with all of their post-Wartime Cigarette and Tobacco Rations.

Hammers Goalkeeper Gregory used to call into Joe's shop to collect the team's rations for their half-time mug of tea and a fag up until 1953 when Joe moved south to Margate to run a restaurant with his wife Jessie and four year old son Roger. Joe's wife Jessie made use of her own war-time and post-war recipes - cooking up a treat for the many holidaying customers - Good East-End Cooking. Not long after moving south, Joe who always suffered from poor eyesight since birth finally went blind losing his sight in the winter of 1957.

Never say die Joe and Jessie fought for Joe's freedom from disability and were rewarded when Joe received his first of FIVE Guide Dogs. The first being Judy (L798) from the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, Leamington Spa. Joe and his Guide Dog Judy, followed by Fury (E1010), Aden, Captain and Ryan tirelessly raised several millions of pounds over the next 30 years for the Guide Dogs for the Blind, enabling the purchasing of the Forfar Training Centre in Scotland and equipping hundreds of blind people with a new set of eyes with a waggly tail.

Joe, along with wife Jessie, their son Roger and Joe's five Guide Dogs dedicated the final 30 years of his life educating everyone who lived and visited the Isle of Thanet "just how important it is that every blind person should have the opportunity to live free from the disability of blindness.

Joe lived and breathed, "Guide Dogs for Blind Association and never forgot his east end and his beloved West Ham United.

Sadly Joe passed away after suffering an undiagnosed heart attack just three years after losing his wife Jessie through cancer. Their son Roger remains an ardent Life Long WHU supporter even though he himself suffered serious spinal injuries, (broken neck, multiple fractures to his spine) in a Road Traffic Accident on 6.12.1982 through no fault of his own.