Up to now Bill has always beaten the odds; he was born on 7 September 1929 in Barrow in Furness, the 4th of 5 children of John and Katy Huddleston. John was a joiner in Vickers Shipyard all his working life except for 3 years in Belfast building the Titanic. At Bill’s birth the midwife gave him 6 months. When he was 3 someone pushed him into the local reservoir and he would certainly have drowned if a passerby hadn’t pulled him out. When he was 4 he survived appendicitis and peritonitis. When he sat for the scholarship exam at the age of 11 he only got in on interview, but by the end of the first term he had gone from the bottom of the B stream to the top of the A stream.

That was another thing. Whatever he took up he always got to the top, as we shall see. After leaving Barrow Grammar School he went on to Durham University. He became President of Methsoc and that is how he met Liz. After University he joined the Atomic Energy Authority. Liz joined him after their marriage in February 1957. Bill studied Management at the Harris College and in 1959 became the first recipient of the Ellis Medal, awarded to the best student under 30, nationwide. He served on the local, regional and national executive committees of the Chartered Institute of Management, and lectured in Management at both Teesside and Darlington Polytechnics.

He moved to Teesside to take up a managerial post with ICI Petrochemicals and soon after he became involved with the local Spastics Society (Scope), and was soon on the Local, Regional and National Executive committees. He did this for 14 years, 12 of which he was Honorary Treasurer, often representing the Society at functions where he met the Duchess of Kent, Princess Anne, the Princess of Wales, and Lord Tonypandy.

Bill was a Local Preacher for almost 60years. His services could be described as traditional but he had a distinctive preaching style and his sermons were always appreciated because he had an original way of looking at familiar material. He was preaching at Bamber Bridge the evening of the day Cathie was born so he chose a very short last hymn, and cycled to Preston Royal Infirmary in time for the 8 o’clock deadline still singing at the top of his voice ‘This; this is the God we adore’ - which became the family hymn and has been sung at all family occasions since. Rick and Sheila were also born in Preston. Bill hosted a house group and became Home Missions secretary and at Ashton he led the Men’s Class and often had the YPF at home on a Sunday evening. He was also active in the Christian Fellowship at work. In the North East he became an innovative Christian Citizenship Secretary and helped develop a circuit mission policy, which illustrates how his gifts and insights were valued by so many people. Back in Fulwood he served on the Fox Street committee and the local NHS Research Ethics committee.

After his father’s death he began to piece together his family history. Of Cumbrian stock on both sides he was proud to trace his line back to the Huddlestons of Millom Castle in Cumbria. Then he found that some of his colleagues at ICI had also been tracing their family history and about 1978, four of them founded the Cleveland Family History Society, which is still active today with over 6000 members worldwide. Bill became the founder Chairman (typically straight to the top again!) and when he moved on after 8 years they made him a life member.

On leaving ICI he set up his own business doing management training and redundancy counselling. He moved to Langdale, his ancestral valley. The redundancy work led to mentoring and therapy. At an age when most people have given up the idea of studying for further qualifications he studied and became qualified as a Master Practitioner in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and qualified to practise Hypnotherapy, Timeline Therapy, Meridian Therapy, Kinesiology, Allergy Testing, and was recognised by the NHS and GPs referred patients to him. He moved back to Fulwood to be more accessible and has helped hundreds of people transform their lives, or stood by them in their hour of need. So many benefited from his ministry - for such it was. He never wanted to retire and gave up work only three months before his death. He was even glad his cancer was untreatable as it meant he could carry on working! He had been unable to preach since a stroke in 2000, but felt he had reached far more people spiritually through his work, most of whom would never have gone near a church.

He had planned his funeral in detail about two weeks before he died. One friend described the service as ‘buoyant’. It was - but that was Bill! The following week the family gathered in Langdale and the younger generation took his ashes up the Langdale Pikes, so he rests, ‘gathered to his fathers’, in his beloved Langdale.

Liz Huddleston