RIP Uncle Bill

On Friday 13 October 1944, Daisy Keates, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter, gave birth to her fourth and final son, William George, in the Borough Hospital, Southampton. Bill, as he came to be known, was the first of Daisy’s children born in hospital. After five years of war, being bombed out and moved countless times, she was not in the best of health. Daisy’s husband, Albert, had been working all over the country at whichever dock needed men, so she had to cope with bombs, rationing and three young boys alone. For most of the war, the Keates family had been living in the thick of it, right in the centre of Southampton, either in Northam Street, Lime Street, Queens Walk or Utility Flats, Canute Road. By 1944, they were back in Northam Street, in a two-up, two-down terraced house with no indoor plumbing and a toilet at the bottom of the garden. It was not the most auspicious start for young Bill Keates.

Unlike his elder brothers, Bill never married. In 1974, after his father died, twenty-nine-year-old Bill became the family breadwinner, taking care of Daisy until she died in 1991. In his spare time, he was a poet and keen photographer. Until diabetes caused his sight to fail, he took and developed his own photographs, including my wedding photos. His worsening eyesight forced him to give up his job and driving, but he threw himself into voluntary work with various organisations devoted to helping others with sight problems.

In July 2014, when I was working at the Bus Mines, we had a visit from a roadshow involving the RNIB. My boss came back from meeting the RNIB representatives rather flustered. One gentleman had given her quite a grilling about accessibility on buses and the unique challenges blind people face. When my turn came to speak to them, I discovered the obstreperous blind person was my Uncle Bill! By this time, his sight was so bad that he didn’t know I was there until I spoke to him. It was an eye-opening experience, excuse the pun. They gave us special glasses that mimicked various sight conditions. It gave me a new appreciation for my eyesight, especially the glasses mimicking glaucoma, the condition behind Uncle Bill’s blindness. It certainly increased my admiration of his steely determination not to let his problems stop him from getting out and about. Bill was also involved with a local charity, Southampton Sight, and in 2015, Commando ran the London Marathon to raise money for them.

As his sight deteriorated, Bill became increasingly reliant on gadgets like Alexa to help him with day-to-day things like telling the time, shopping, and reading labels, emails and letters. He was part of several writing groups, and even when problems with his legs made him virtually housebound, he used the internet to keep in touch with his various groups, friends and family. Sadly, on 8 May, he passed away peacefully in his sleep. Family gatherings won’t be the same without his stories and unique slant on life.

Below are two of Uncle Bill’s poems. RIP Bill Keates.

Bro

In childhood oh brother mine I realise I hardly knew you 

And now at this years end a Christmas Carol visitation

A conversation now that you are gone, are no more

We reminisce, we chew the fat, put the world to rights

When you were one says he, I apprenticed, left school

At my age then you were two years away from an uncle be

My firstborn must have seen you as you did me then

An occasional presence, near a grown-up, not nearest

For I grew up with duties, responsibilities from age nine,

Dad sent away, directed to ports as yet unscathed by war

The man of the family now at times but still a child inside

With fears and cares I could not share with brothers new

You three looked to me fight your fights while seeming carefree

And after war to work before National Service beckoned me

To foreign lands, air letters to you by fast camels’ hands 

To return, to marry and set up home, so still 

not so near

Thus, in response I say, you were always 

 Not Too far away

Although it seemed a generational gap 

between us lay

We became as decades sped by to bridge

the years away

To be closer and understand our lives 

and find our way

Of love

The love of life, the love of no strife

The love of striving and achieving

Without scheming or deceiving

The love of earth and air and colour

The love of friendship with ease

Not coloured by obligations need

Just fellowship of kindred spirits

The love of passion shared,

 wrapped enraptured with each other

The love of sunrise new day dawning

Of sunset prelude to ease and yawning

Of sleep sublime that dreams entwine

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