I’ve only recently realised that a funeral gives so much flipping time for reflection and review that it’s a good time to make the time to write down memories to myself. For the second time this month I’ve been to a funeral – unprecedented rates, and not something I want to repeat. A few thoughts here in no particular order about Bill.
Bill first came into my life when I ‘came round to call’ on Katie. I was 18, she 17, and only in my recent life have I come to appreciate what it’s like having a young man appear in the life of your daughter. I’d met Jean a few times before … at the side of rugby pitches … giving Katie a lift to The Sugarhouse in Lancaster – but in the summer of 1988 Bill was new to me and I was nervous!
I shouldn’t have been, of course. A very mild-mannered man with the driest of whit and sharpest cheeky sarcasm, Bill quietly and quickly accepted me, of course, joining him ‘on the bottom rung of the ladder’ and eventually being subsumed into the Dalkin family!
Compared to my daughters, I have a huge head start on knowing their ‘grampy’, but by the same token, Katie had a 17 year head start on me. In that sense, I definitely missed knowing Bill in his physical prime. Struggling as he did with back problems that compounded following lower back surgery in his late 40s, Bill got by incredibly well for someone with little to no feeling in his right leg, until his mid 70s.
He remained tolerant of his poor mobility. Perhaps not fully stoic, and when things got too much he capitulated and took the chance to sit – in pain – but dealt with pain constantly and increasingly for the last 30 years of his life. The last few years were hard. An early victim of COVID-19 – whilst in hospital – and with poor respiration, Bill’s ability to bounce and get going again shocked us all, I think. It hit hardest when Jean died (Christmas 2024), and combined with the gathering pace of vascular dementia, Bill’s life became very hard. The last couple of years will fade in memory though. Indeed, I feel they are already starting to, and the legend – Bill Dalkin – is starting to evoke only the happy memories.
Below – rather than an album of Bill, I thought I’d gather a few snaps in time of his family at the actual funeral. We’ll look on at this as an event in itself, in years to come.
