When it came to the who’s who of British culture, Denis Payne knew them all. He just didn’t tell anybody.
The names he could have dropped would have left most people slack-jawed, but the former member of the British diplomatic service didn’t mumble a word.
“He was so very personable, but there were certain things he didn’t talk about,” said Mary Clemon Payne, his wife of 70 years. “He didn’t talk about who he knew, and he didn’t talk about the war.”
As a teen, Denis Payne enrolled in the Royal Air Force flight school. Six months after his 1939 graduation, he found himself manning a tail gun during the Battle of Britain. There were a great many things he experienced that he never spoke of, but for an untold number of students at St. Thomas More Catholic School in downtown Decatur, Payne was a treasure trove of information.
“Kids that were studying World War II or England would all come to granddad,” said Katie Payne of Nashville, one of his 11 grandchildren. “And he would tell them his stories. A friend of mine left me a voice mail and said she thinks nearly every child who came through St. Thomas More interviewed him for one thing or another.”
Payne felt incredibly connected to the city of Avondale Estates, where he and his wife lived since the 1950s, said the couple’s youngest son, Michael Payne, who lives around the corner from his parents. He said it is fitting that the city his father loved was founded by an Englishman.
“He has been involved in everything here,” the younger Payne said of his father. “Every civic organization or effort, he had a hand in.”
Denis H. Payne, a native of Plymouth, England, died Sunday from complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pneumonia. He was 93. A.S. Turner and Sons Funeral Home and Crematory was in charge of cremation arrangements.
Payne spent nearly 40 years working for the British Consulate, more than 30 in Atlanta. He finally retired in 1982, and by 1987 he’d done something he was unable to do before: become an American citizen.
“His job precluded him from doing it before then,” his son said. “But it was something he really wanted to do, and I can’t imagine it was an easy process.”
One of the many things Payne’s family cherished about him was his sense of humor. He had a dry wit that could lighten up nearly any situation. He also told some of the best stories, but some of them were more fiction than fact, his granddaughter said.
One of the family’s favorite stories was of how he met his wife. Michael Payne said his father’s version of the tale included parachuting out of a plane in Tennessee, the parachute getting caught in a tree and a farmer with a shotgun telling the elder Payne that if he wanted to live, he would have to marry his daughter Mary. The family erupted in raucous laughter at the conclusion of the tall tale, which isn’t remotely close to how the two met in the early 1940s.
“We met at the home of one of my neighbors in Macon,” said Mary Payne. “He tells people he married an older woman,” she said later with a smile. She was born one month to the day before he was.
In addition to his wife, youngest son and grandchildren, Payne is survived by three other sons, Terry Payne of Hilton Head, S.C., David Payne of Birmingham, Ala., and Richard Payne of Albany, Ga.; and eight great-grandchildren.
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