I haven’t felt inclined to write in my blog lately because it’s been a sad time for our family. A while ago it became clear that our older brother Bill wasn’t going to survive multiple myeloma, and after a brief final stay in hospital he was moved to a pre-chosen kindly hospice. During his two weeks there his family were welcome and I gather there were happy memory times and quiet times. Now he is gone and we shall always miss his gentle, kind, learned and enthusiastic presence.

Others are writing words about his life and I shall be pleased to listen again to his adventures and achievements when I attend his funeral at St Neots, near Cambridge on November 24th.

But I would like to explain how it is that Bill has always been happy about my having emigrated to Canada and why he’s made as many trips here as he could manage during his lifetime. He was born in Mindemoya, Manitoulin Island, Ontario, the firstborn of the Revd. Richard Taylor from England, and Margaret (neé Pepper) from Saskatchewan. Richard had taken theological training at a college in distant Prince Albert, Sask (where my husband attended High School, coincidentally) and during the summers he and his fellow students were sent as missionaries to settlers in Northern Saskatchewan. He met my mother in the tiny village of Fort Pitt on the North Saskatchewan River, they were the first couple to be married in the newly built All Saints Anglican church in 1931 and by February 1932 they had settled in Mindemoya and our father was an unpaid missionary. There Richard coordinated the building of a fine English-style stone church, the third he had organized in Canada. The other two are in Fort Pitt and Deer Creek, Saskatchewan. Bill was born in 1933 and our oldest sister Elizabeth/Betty/Bess arrived in 1934. Margaret was pregnant with sister Patricia when the little family sailed to England in 1936.

One of Bill’s finest achievements has been the writing of a detailed and understanding account of Richard and Margaret’s lives, ‘The River Goes On”. It is a fascinating read for all of us in the Taylor family. I recommend it to the next generation, when you have time and want to understand how Richard and Margaret met and how they wound up raising us in a little Dorset village.

As a young University student Bill made his first return trip to Canada in 1954, spending a gruelling summer helping to build big storage tanks for uranium soon to be mined in Elliot Lake, Ontario. Margaret’s sister Mildred had married another Taylor, Dennis. His family lived in Mindemoya so Bill was able to meet several cousins that summer.

Many years later, after work as a parish priest, marriage, two sons and a career in the Royal Navy as a chaplain, Bill made another trip out to Canada, I think visiting relatives in Ontario and Saskatchewan before arriving here in the West Coast for a holiday with Alan and me and our two teenage sons. We have fond memories of driving him on a camping trip to the Rockies.

After that he made several more trips to Canada, more recently with his wife Lottie, including our son Steve’s wedding to Jennifer and a memorable cruise up our fabulous coastline to Alaska. I’ve always felt comfortable knowing Bill’s fondness for the land of his birth.

One photo I’m including is of Bill and me as I left St Neots railway station just over a year ago. We had a marvellous day just after that with almost all his grandchildren and his two sons, Michael and Richard, exploring the magnificent display of poppies around the Tower of London. The other photo was taken on the same trip when Bill accompanied me to Primavera Gallery and once again, we popped in to stand in the quadrangle of his alma mater Corpus Christi College just nearby. He would be happy to know that we, his family and friends, intend to gather to reminisce in said college after the funeral.