It's cheeky of me to write an obit for Bill since I barely knew him - but knowing him ( a little) its not altogether inappropriate...
Everyone who did know him talks of him with great affection and it would be difficult not to, his evident qualities shining out. The word Gentleman gets bandied about, terribly polite with a most mellifluous voice; even when he'd forgotten who you were and what you were doing there he was charming. He felt like an old friend as soon as you met.
I got into contact with him late in life when his daughter asked me to drop by and play chess with him. Always on the look out for a game, it is possible to pop into the Maison de retrait where he was ensconced at any time after 11.00, avoiding meal times. It became a quiet retreat for me, a shelter from the hurly burly :)
Here's a bit of online biography :
William (Bill) Norris spent more than ten years working for various newspapers in England and Africa before his appointment as Parliamentary Correspondent to the prestigious Times of London. Afterward, as the Africa Correspondent for The Times, he covered a wide range of political beats in Biafra, Nigeria, Angola, the Congo, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. He went on to counsel young journalists as the Associate Director of the PressWise Trust (a British media ethics charity) and present at colleges and conferences for many years, publishing numerous works of fiction and nonfiction inspired by his investigative journalism.
Many things Bill spoke of stick in the memory. His favourite place was Nairobi. When asked why, he said it was for the lions walking in the streets. He wrote many books and told me the worse thing was that people lied, all the time. Deceit hard wired. His job was to untangle lies.
Bill was quite content in the retreat home, as long as he had lots to read he was happy; I rarely turned up there without a book or two having myself a terror of nothing to read. We would chat about books, in the garden when the weather was decent, where he would expand visibly in the open space -
He seemed to have forgotten his French as he'd aged - he forgot a deal of stuff - but his memories of the distant past were lively. His chess was erratic! Sometimes he's throw a game, probably bored by me, and sometimes we'd have a good fight.
Deeply saddened by his death and when I examine that feeling I think its more than Bill that's died, its a whole culture that's gone with him. It's become a trope to say we'll never see his like again, but... but who knows, perhaps we'll meet again.
PS Big thanks to Saveria for letting me use the photo of Bill -
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