My father, Bill Forrester, who has died aged 91, was a civil servant in the Inland Revenue for most of his working life, as well as serving in the Royal Navy during the second world war.
Born in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, to working-class parents, Bill was the youngest of three boys. His father, William, was a decorator and railway worker, and his mother, Elizabeth (nee Graves), a shop worker and dressmaker. As a young boy, he suffered from tuberculosis, and in 1933 was sent to an “open-air” school on Roa Island. However, he was clever, and in 1937 secured a place at Barrow grammar school.
In 1943, he joined the Royal Navy, becoming an able seaman on minesweepers in the Mediterranean. He played cricket, a lifelong passion, on one occasion turning out for the Royal Navy against the army in Gibraltar. Recalling this event many years later, he did not remember much of the match, but did remember the tea break, where he and a fellow player (a sergeant in the Royal Marines) were seated at a different table from the other players, who were all officers. It is possible that experiences such as this were a motivation in his lifelong commitment to the Labour party.
He did his civil service entrance exams in Malta, then joined the Inland Revenue in Warrington in 1946.
In 1956 Bill moved to Ludlow, Shropshire, and met Mary Abbott at her parents’ newsagent’s shop while buying his Manchester Guardian on the way to work. Mary’s mother would hide the Guardian in the morning if Mary wasn’t up, meaning Bill would have to return later in the day for his paper. They married three years later. In 1970 the family moved to Preston, Lancashire.
He was seconded to the Kenyan government, and in 1974 took his young family to Nairobi for two years before returning to Preston. They moved again in 1980 to Launceston, Cornwall, where Bill was an HM inspector of taxes in charge of investigations.
On retirement in 1985, Bill was made MBE. He enjoyed seeing the world, once travelling by cargo ship from Britain to Australia in the early 90s.
Mary died in 2003. He is survived by his four children, Adam, Keir, Louise and me, and two grandchildren, Ella and Emily.
