Category: Persons – Surname beginning with W

Thursday 24th August 2023

Brian Wilde, of Bishopstrow Court, Warminster, passed away at Salisbury Hospital on Tuesday 15th August 2023. He was 78 and will be sadly missed by his family and friends.

A public notice on the Basingstoke Table Tennis Association website stated: “We are sad to announce the passing of Brian Wilde who died on 15^th August. Brian played in the Basingstoke League for many years being a stalwart of the SEB club and also playing regularly in the Basingstoke Closed Championships with some success. He was a canny player giving very few points away, every point against him having to be chiselled out. He will be very fondly remembered by anyone who played with or against him and in particular those of us who were involved with the Basingstoke Stotzheim twinning, including our friends from Stotzheim. Brian was one of the original organisers of the twinning in the 1970s and was a participant up to 2019. He moved to Warminster in the early 2000s and continued to play table tennis and make a considerable contribution there. In short, Brian was a proper gentleman of Basingstoke table tennis. Our thoughts are with his wife Ann and the rest of his family.”

He was an active member and player at Warminster Table Tennis Club and had served as Club Chairman and Welfare Officer. He was also a member of Warminster Lions Club and his face bore an uncanny likeness to Father Christmas on the Club’s Christmas float when it toured the streets on December evenings.

The funeral service for Brian will be held at Salisbury Crematorium on Tuesday 5th September at 12 noon. Family flowers only. Donations, if desired, can be made payable to the Stars Appeal and sent to Iles and Vincent, Funeral Directors, 14 The Cornmarket, Warminster, BA12 9BX.

Wednesday 23rd August 2023

Gordon James Woodham, of Downs View, Warminster, passed peacefully away at his home on 6th August 2023. He was 90 years of age. He was a much loved husband to the late Edie Woodham, father to Martin, father-in-law to Nicola, and grandfather to Hannah, Freya, James and Teddy. Gordon’s funeral will be held at St. John’s Church, Boreham Road, Warminster, on Wednesday 30th August 2023, at 11.30am. Family flowers only. Donations, if desired, can be made payable to Cancer Research UK or Cats Protection – donations can be made on the day at the funeral service or c/o F. Curtis & Son, Funeral Directors, Portway, Warminster.

Friday 18th August 2023

Martin Woodham writes:

My father Gordon James Woodham passed away suddenly at home [Downs View, Warminster] on Sunday 6th August 2023, aged 90. We will be holding a Remembrance of Life (Funeral) on Wednesday 30th August, at 11.30am, at St. John’s Church, Boreham Road, Warminster, and then afterwards at The Bell and Crown Pub, Deverill Road, Warminster, where there will be a small buffet and bar available and some memories of Gordon. All are welcome.

Friday 5th May 2023

Details of the Deceased
Surname: Williams
First name: Julie
Middle name(s): Sylvia
Date of death: 27 March 2023
Claims Date: 6 July 2023

Last address of the deceased:
14a Heronslade, Warminster, Wiltshire, BA12 9HR.

Details of the Executor/Administrator:
Middletons Solicitors,
East Gate House, 94 East Street, Warminster Wiltshire, BA12 9BG
(Jennifer Elizabeth McKellar).

Legal Information:
Notice is hereby given pursuant to section 27 (Deceased Estates) of the Trustee Act 1925, that any person having a claim against or an interest in the estate of any of the deceased persons whose names and addresses are set out above is hereby required to send particulars in writing of his claim or interest to the person or persons whose names and addresses are set out above, and to send such particulars before the date specified in relation to that deceased person displayed above, after which date the personal representatives will distribute the estate among the persons entitled thereto having regard only to the claims and interests of which they have had notice and will not, as respects the property so distributed, be liable to any person of whose claim they shall not then have had notice.

Friday 5th May 2023

A thanksgiving service for Julie Sylvia Williams will be held at St.Aldhelm’s Church, Bishopstrow, on Monday 15th May 2023, at 11.30 a.m.

Julie passed away at her home at Heronslade, Warminster, on 27th March 2023. She hailed from Worthing, Sussex, and was born in 1954, being the eldest of the two daughters of Leslie Roberts and Sylvia Roberts (nee Wright). Julie was the widow of Keith Williams (he predeceased her in May 2015), the sister of Melanie, and unique aunt to Alex and Dominic.

Donations in memory of Julie can be made, if desired, to St. Aldhelm’s Church, Bishopstrow, or the Brain Injury Association. F. Curtis & Son, Funeral Directors, 11 Portway, Warminster. Telephone 01985 212033.

Tuesday 23rd August 2022

On their WordPress site, Dorking Museum & Heritage Centre have a page of information and photographs about the racing driver Rob Walker:

On his 11^th birthday [in 1928] he was given his first car, a 1924 Morris Coupe. He soon learnt to drive (and race) the Morris along the mile-long drive at the family home, Sutton Veny House, near Warminster in Wiltshire.

To read the biographical notes and see the pictures, click on: https://dorkingmuseum.org.uk/rob-walker-gentleman-racer/

Sir Dennis Murray Walters died on Friday 1st October 2021. During his time as the M.P. for the Westbury constituency, Wiltshire, he lived at Orchardleigh, 42 Corton, in the Wylye Valley.

Born on 28th November 1928, he was an Old Gregorian and the following obituary is from the Downside School website ( www.downside.co.uk/ ):

Urbane and fiercely bright, Sir Dennis, who has died aged 92, was for 28 years an independent-minded MP for the Wiltshire seat of Westbury. Sir Dennis’s outspoken Arabist sympathies, particularly on the cause of the Palestinians, may have contributed to him being denied office under Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher.

As a teenager, he served for 11 months with the Italian Resistance, returning to England to resume his education at Downside School and St Catharine’s College, Cambridge where he read Law and earned a tennis Blue. After university, Sir Dennis forged a successful business career in advertising and public relations. Later, he was employed as a personal assistant to Lord Hailsham during his chairmanship of the Conservative party and ran his campaign to succeed Harold Macmillan as leader. Hailsham considered him “the ablest man in the party.”  Sir Dennis was elected as MP for Westbury in 1964. In 1967, following the Six Day War, he and fellow Conservative member Sir Ian Gilmour travelled to Palestine. Both men later issued a statement urging Israel to help repatriate Palestinian refugees.

Outside Parliament, Sir Dennis served as Chairman of Middle East International, founded in 1971 with a “mission to provide authoritative and independent news on the Middle East”. In 1980, at the best of Mrs Thatcher, and alongside Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington, Sir Dennis set up CMEC, ostensibly to carry out the same functions of Middle East International but also, at first, to advance the cause of the Palestinians. He chaired CMEC until 1992 and then became its president. He was also Joint Chairman of the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding.

A frequent and passionate rebel for causes close to his heart, Sir Dennis was warned to drop the Palestinian issue if he wanted a ministerial career. Appropriately, his 1989 biography was entitled Not Always with the Pack. Sir Dennis left parliament in 1992 following stomach surgery and remained active for the remainder of his life, playing tennis well into his eighties and holding court at his house near the Tuscan city of Lucca. He loved nothing more than a good political debate around the dinner table and had a weakness for the Toscano cigars as chewed so menacingly by Clint Eastwood, the man with no name, in Spaghetti westerns. Sir Dennis was a true one off and will greatly missed.