Bill Suffolk

BILL SUFFOLK 29 Dec 1919 - 22 Nov 1991

Bill was born in 1919 in Bradford, Yorkshire, where he lived until he joined the RAF in 1939. His father walked out when Bill was only 13 months old and afterwards contributed nothing to his upbringing. A determination to do more for his children than his father had done for him was Bill's aim in life in which he succeeded admirably. His early life was therefore a constant struggle; his mother couldn't afford to send him to grammar school so he left  school at 14 to earn  his living  by day and continued his studies 4 nights a week.

He was the youngest person in the country to gain his Grocer's Diploma and although he left the grocery trade for good soon afterwards he was always proud of this achievement. Suffering fools patiently but not gladly in his later careers, he would often say: "That's right, let the experts make a mess of it and then call t' grocer's lad in to sort it out!"

Bill volunteered for the RAF when employees in the grocery business were on the dole one week in nine and the future there seemed too bleak to contemplate. Good fortune rather than his superiors' management prevented him from blundering into the path of the German Army while serving as a wireless operator in France in 1940. He returned safely to England to meet his treasured Norah whom he married in the dark days of September 1942 after a courtship partly in the London blitz. Then His Majesty promptly dispatched him to India as a wireless mechanic which parted him from Norah for over two years.

After the war Bill became a clerk with the newly formed National Coal Board (NCB), settling in Norah's home town of Darlington where their three sons were born. In 1956 one of the NCB's frequent reorganisations forced Bill to apply for a number of jobs he didn't really want and led to the family moving to Southport the following Spring. Later Bill joined the management of the NCB's divisional computer centre near Leigh and he finished his career there as a systems consultant in 1972, taking early retirement at the age of 52.

Bill and Norah's love of travel led them to take up caravanning in 1956 and this remained a major hobby for 35 years. In the late 1960s they ventured abroad and after Bill retired they spent a quarter of every year traveling throughout Western Europe.

All his life Bill loved music which involved him deeply in the life of the community. In the early days of the war he was church organist in the Wiltshire village where he was then stationed and he wrote his own wedding march. Latterly he rarely played, but Bill and Norah attended all kinds of musical performances and for some years Bill was Vice-Chairman and Chairman of the Southport Gramophone Society. Bill and Norah were also active supporters of live theatre, the cinema and almost anything which they thought worth going to and Bill gave illustrated lectures to local societies. Local people remember him too for his hard-hitting letters to the local papers and he was not averse to submitting very detailed unsolicited reports to officials to prove his points about local issues.

Bill only became involved in family history after Norah died but the work he completed in the time left to him, some of which you are now reading, will always be a source of wonder to his family.

After only a few months researching our own family history and reading borrowed copies of 'Family Tree Magazine', Bill wrote an article which he sent in. Much to his surprise it was accepted and published in the March 1991 edition which also offered a booklet for sale. The response from readers was astounding. Many people wrote to him saying that this was the first time they had been able to understand how to use their computer for family history work, in spite of having spent lots of money on programs which did not seem to do what they expected.

Bill wrote two more booklets which were reviewed in the August 1991 "Family Tree Magazine" and once more an avalanche of requests for advice fell through his letterbox

Sadly, Bill was not in the best of health when he began his family history work, having suffered a very severe heart attack in 1988 which left him with considerable breathing difficulties, and he passed away on 22 November 1991. At the time of his death he had received letters from around 350 people all over the world who were interested in his way of compiling family history information using a word processor. Many of those people had adopted his recording system and it has been very gratifying for all of us to know that our Dad has made tracing their ancestors - and particularly the recording of their findings -  a great deal easier.

It is my family's wish that Dad's work should continue. I have now decided that the time has come to take advantage of today's technology to help further Dad's system - Dad would have been astounded by the developments over the past 10 years. His original guide contained, quite literally, keypress by keypress instructions as to how to set up the templates on an Amstrad PCW - now, at the press of a button, I can send you the complete template document, ready to add your data, print and go, saving you hours of work.

Please click one of the links below

Introduction
Getting Started with Family History
Family History on a Shoestring
The Suffolk System of Recording Family History
Preparing Your Information for Recording
Templates - download here
Useful Links to Genealogy Resources
Frequently Asked Questions
The Suffolk Family Tree Research (well, MY forebears!)

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