William Ian Kerry 'WIK' Roberts. 1953 - 2025. BGS 1964 - 1971.

From his reports at school

‘His main interest out of school was the RAF Section of the (voluntary) Combined Cadet Force contingent, in which he reached the rank of Sergeant. He went to a long series of annual camps and courses, and his interest and keenness here were undoubted.’

‘He showed himself courteous, displaying above average leadership potential, with corresponding initiative and resource.’

‘He opted out of games some time before leaving school, but in the Middle School he showed very fair athletic potential’.

The following was the speech given at WIK's funeral by his life-long best friend and fellow Old Bristolian, Dick Manns. 

Bill,

We first met on our first day of senior school in 1964, but we became close when we both joined the cadet corps in 1968.

He was in the RAF section with Tone who is here today; I was in the Navy section, the senior service!

The following year, Hugh, also here today, joined the Army section.

We went on many exercises, I well remember one when we had to race another team to the other side of a mountain. Bill found a disused railway tunnel, and we won the race easily!

Whilst camping at Talybont-on-Usk, the officer in charge got tired of the close presence of us teenage boys and offered 10 shillings to anybody who would take a shower in the overflow from the canal. Bill was the only one who took up the challenge; he was blue from the cold afterwards!

We tried for the ten Tors, the only training for which was sitting under a tree listening to ‘It’s I’m sorry I’ll read that again’, Bill was a lifelong fan of Monty Python and John Cleese.

We took advantage of our position in the Cadet corps to try paragliding. This consisted of Tone driving Bills car into the wind on Brean sands, whilst Bill, wearing a normal parachute usually used as a brake, was attached to the rear bumper by a long rope. It was probably a good thing that the rope broke, albeit that it sent Bill careering back across the beach towards a barbed wire fence, other options might have had worse results!

After school and university, Bill had a variety of jobs, mainly in the office, where he had an unfortunate tendency to break telephones.

He also managed, on April 1st, to convince a printing firm that Whiskas were bringing out a new version of cat food, mouse flavour.

He had a spell as a taxi driver, and then had a notion to travel the world, filling in the countries that he had visited in black felt tip. At the same time he tried being vegetarianism, in Venezuela that means cheese salad, in New Zealand it meant a Macdonald without the burger.

He had a idea to start a business making polystyrene signs. It started with a car battery, a wire, and my old kitchen table in his garage. I should have asked for some shares, because that business is still going.

He was my best man when I married my Spanish wife, he tried to learn Spanish for his speech, but luckily for me his pronunciation of ‘Gibraltar is British’ was so bad that my new father-in-law didn’t understand it.

Tone and I were proud to help officiate at his wedding in Thornbury castle to Natasha. Confusingly to me, their daughter is called Nastasja!

In conclusion, the best thing that I can say is to quote another old cadet corps colleague, who couldn’t be here today, Duncan went on to be a vicar, so I consider him an expert in these things:-

‘Dear Bill, May he rest in peace and rise in glory. Heaven will be a more interesting place because of his presence’

From a vicar, that’s quite a statement.

Dick Manns. OB 1971.