RIP William Winterbottom

Uncle Bill wasn’t even a real uncle, at least not by blood. He was the best friend of my mother’s father, from their army days back in the 40’s and 50’s. I say ‘my mother’s father’ because I never knew the man. He disappeared one night when I was a baby, leaving his wife - my Nan - and my mother behind. For a while they didn’t even know if he was alive or dead, but eventually he made contact with a truth insufferable in its mudanity; he’d left them for someone else. My Nan suffered a breakdown, and my Mum (an only child) bore the brunt of both her father’s rejection and her mother’s pain. Throughout all this, Uncle Bill stuck around. He helped out where he could, and never abandoned our family, despite any lack of familial obligation.

Eternally unmarried, he lived in a ancient stone cottage on the outskirts of Oldham; a tiny building with low-beamed ceilings and an outside toilet. My younger brother and I were fascinated by this when we visited him as children. Wasn’t it cold? Was it scary at night? Turns out he used a commode that he kept stashed under the bed, a fact he disclosed to us with childlike glee. His life often seemed to be frozen in time. He always went on holiday during the same two weeks of every year, visiting the same tired little seaside town and staying in the same bed-and-breakfast. He had no telephone in his house, and viewed most types of progress as troublesome at best. He did, however, have a car, which he continued to drive long after his legs had given out and he required a walking stick to get from the house to the driver’s door. Every year, just before Easter, and again just before Christmas, he would arrive, unannounced, at my parents’ house, his arms full of gifts. At Easter he would bring chocolate eggs for my brother and I, and at Christmas he’d deliver presents, perfectly wrapped in cheap paper from the local post office. His were always the first gifts we’d open on Christmas morning, as they’d be placed at the end of our beds in the middle of the night; an attempt by my parents to keep us occupied and out of their bed for as long as possible.

During those visits Bill would always stick around for a couple of hours, drinking mugs of tea and eating biscuits and telling stories that made us cry with laughter. He always had a tall tale to tell, about the odd folk of Oldham, or the bizzare experiences he had during his time in the army, and he’d deliver the punchline and laugh his infectious, gurgling laugh; his broken, crooked teeth bared in mirth. Eventually he’d stand up, always saying something about needing to ‘head over them moors before it gets too dark’, before driving away, his swollen knuckles wrapped around the brightly-coloured leather steering wheel cover of his Ford Escort. He never forgot our birthdays, always sending a card with a little money inside. Years later, when I’d moved to the United States and my daughter was born, he sent her clothes and money; a gift to a child he never met.

Uncle Bill was 89 years old when he died last week; a good innings, as he would have said, and the end of a life lived with individuality, humour and warmth. He had cancer, it turned out, though he hadn’t told anyone about it. Typically, he didn’t want to make a fuss;  he just soldiered on without complaint.

Although it’s now years since I saw him, I will miss him. I’ll miss knowing that he’s out there, doing things his way, on his terms, and answering to nobody but his own moral compass. He was a funny man, and a good one, and the world has a little less light in it now that he’s gone. Goodbye Uncle Bill; time for one last trip over those moors, before it gets too dark…