Remembrance of a True Scot: William

Jimmy (i.e. Mercury)

 

A "Yeoman of Signals" is the British military figure who is responsible for military communications.  Their mascot is "Jimmy," as in their patch, above (an image of Mercury, the messenger of the gods from Greek mythology).  Among other things, they not only scramble communications during a war (so the enemy, for instance, does not know your plans), but a Yeoman also can be responsible for communications in non-war events, such as scrambling messages from 10 Downing Street in London to the White House in the US.

Bill with His Unit

Just so, William -- Bill -- a retired Yeoman of Signals during the Falklands War and, later, for Maggie Thatcher, related the following story.

Bill was sending a message on the machine used to encode political communiques — in this case, indeed:  from 10 Downing to the White House.  Maggie stands behind Bill, dictating the message.  As Bill types, the message appears on a screen, and when everything is complete and correct, it is sent in scrambled format.  As Maggie stands behind Bill, who seated at his keyboard, she dictates her message -- watching the screen.  Bill types a slightly different word.  Without hesitation, Maggie -- with a hefty diamond ring -- gives Bill's ear a right smack and sternly lets him know "That is not what I said!"  Without missing a beat, Bill quickly backs up the text, corrects the word, and continues typing.

The "Iron Lady"?  Hmm.  Hard as a diamond, perhaps -- with maybe with a flaw or inlusion?

Up to WWII (but no later), British soldiers injured in combat received a "wound stripe."  Bill most certainly earned a wound stripe for this severe injury during this event with Maggie (most definitely combat even if it was "friendly" fire), and in consideration of Bill's example, the British military should obviously re-instate the wound stripe.

Bill told me this amusing story as we lunched in a pub near Notting Hill after we had spent a brilliantly sunny morning wandering down Portobello Road in Notting Hill on a (crowded but delightful) Saturday, musing through military bits.

How did we meet?  Well....  Once upon the Isle of Whithorn, where my ancestors lived long ago, there was a very nice inn called The Queen's Arms.  The owner?  Bill -- who bought the inn after he retired from the military.  So in the 1990s, we met as my father, my wife, and I visited, and in later years returned with more family members.

Once upon a Time in Isle

In the mornings, Bill, his mother, and son, Ken, would rise and bustle -- Bill lighting a coal fire in the smaller common room, and then all busily stirring up breakfasts.  And when tables were cleared, the kitchen cleaned, the bedrooms done up, and the day well into, you could find Bill smoking by the fire and doing the crossword puzzle in the paper, sitting serenely in his sweater, and glasses on the end of his nose.

Bill Doing a Crossword

And then a cuppa or, later in the day, a half pint by the warm fire, with the thick (and cool) stone walls of the room.  Reb, another true Scot, would need walkies, and the old dear would waddle down the street.  It was an ideal place, Queens Arms, solely because of Bill, his mother, Ken, with his wonderful laugh, and Reb.

Ken and Ken

 

 

Happy and Faithful Reb

I kept up with Bill over the years by email, Skype calls, and a lot of photos, and...we met up again in 2014 when I was teaching in London.  And there were exchanged gifts over various Christmases -- a couple of years Oor Wullie books to us (comic books that teach Scots English), and, for Bill, a Victorinox classic I covered in an exotic wood, and a coal wagon for his fabulous train layout at Royal Chelsea Hospital.

Our mutual interest in the British military was a central part of our friendship, a feature of which was admiration for one of the finest (I believe) WWI memorials in Britain -- that in Paisley, Scotland.  Bill was surprised that I not only knew of it without his telling, but that I had taken photos of it and believed it to be one of the most meaningful monuments within Britain.  It was another connection of kindred spirits.  And where was Bill from?  Paisley.

All of these things were connections with Bill.  Whenever he was traveling in his old haunts, he would take photos of the monument to send me beyond photos from his many other travels in the north of Scotland.  He was a remarkable photographer and, as such, knew how to capture and communicate the beauty of his native land.

Paisley WWI Memorial

He also knew "Bird in Hand" -- an inn near Paisley, in Johnstone, which had a very nice restaurant that my wife and I discovered one year on our anniversary.  The wonderful Gillian Kir sent us off with champagne flutes and some other bits.  Bird in Hand had been the house of the last Laird of Johnstone.  Bill informed me some years afterwards that it was no longer there -- it had burnt and was eventually torn down. 

Bird in Hand

But our mutual interest was not merely Scotland and the British military; there was something more, and something at the center of our beings: our shared faith in Christ.  As he said in one email,

Ive been around now for 72 years and I’m feeling it but you are the first person that has connected with my idiosyncratic view. My faith is quiet but one day will.........

His faith so far as I saw it was not peculiar but very sensible, centered upon the points of faith which C. S. Lewis defined as “mere Christianity.”  Maybe that is a rarity today given how common the odd and many extremisms have become, which is what he seems to have meant by his being “idiosyncratic.”

Bill was invited to the military retirement community in London, established by King Charles II, the Royal Chelsea Hospital (RCH).  You might recognize them as the retired veterans, male and female, in their scarlet jackets and black hats -- three-cornered hats for some occasions.  Bill was rightfully proud of his comrades from all branches of the military and sent many photos of his duties in scarlet, him standing in his coat with medals on.

On Remembrance Days, I would send him accounts of the small, informal ceremony I have long held at sunrise on 11 November in the States; he would send photos of Remembrance ceremonies in the UK -- cemeteries and monuments, poppies laid on.  He loved to see the real poppies my wife and I grow each year in front of our house -- the coquelicot that are prolific along the trench areas of France, those of McCrae's poem.

One Remembrance Day...the Men and Women Veterans in Scarlet

 

Late last December and into early January, no email-replies came from Bill for a couple of weeks, a time when, due to a surge in Covid, RCH was closed to visitors.  And...no answers from his cell phone.  I figured he was busy with family, his train set up, and RCH friends.  Kindly, his family emailed.  Bill had passed suddenly on 7 January.

C. S. Lewis -- speaking I think of Charles Williams -- expressed that it was people of uncommonly great spirit who leave the largest vacancies in our lives when they depart.  So I feel with Bill.  The emptiness is not so much dependent upon daily contact; the vacuum is due to the spiritual bond we have, the mental note that this person exists -- these things, and that immediate communication with them is no longer possible.

God bless his soul.  God bless his family.  He is missed.