Norman Willis


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Previous # Next ] [ Start New Thread ] [ TarBoard ]

Posted by Peter Hyland on June 27, 2014 at 01:10:58 user Peter_H.

I was very sorry to hear of the death of Norman Willis (see Paul Crisp’s post below and the Telegraph and Times obituaries yesterday). He was an ardent lover of Ransome’s books and was the President of The Arthur Ransome Society from 2000 to 2009. He was from a humble background in Middlesex and used to tell how as a boy he borrowed ‘Swallows and Amazons’ from his local library. He was enchanted by it and was broken-hearted when he had finished it, as he thought that was the end of it all. When he took it back to the library, the librarian asked “Have you read ‘Swallowdale’?” “You mean there’s another one???” gasped Norman.

As with most people involved in TARS admin during the 2000s, I got to know Norman. The Telegraph obituary says that he had “an endless fund of shaggy dog stories”. I had dinner with him at Falmouth in 2008 and I think I must have heard them all. However, his forte was the one-line quips which he would interject into otherwise dull meetings, causing the meeting to dissolve into laughter. With regard to disputes (both in TARS and in the Trade Union Congress), Norman came out with the true and immortal line: “It only takes one to make a quarrel”. In TARS he has been very much missed.



Follow Ups:



Post a followup

Name:
Email (optional). This will be visible to everyone on TarBoard, and spammers:

Existing subject (please edit appropriately) :

or is it time to start a New Thread?

Comments:

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL:

post direct to TarBoard test post first

Before posting it is necessary to be a registered user.


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TarBoard ]