Dr William Wilson Turner MB BCh

Tribute to Dad. Eulogy given at his funeral service 30/12/2020 Bill Turner 16/11/1933-8/12/2020 Our Dad was never knowingly concise. That's probably universally agreed. In fact he had a great deal to say on a ridiculously wide range of subjects, and as one of my cousins said to me the day after he died " what I would give to hear him tell me about the 55 varieties of bean just now". I suspect that's how we all feel. He lived much longer and more healthily than the vast majority of humans, but it still wasn't quite long enough-he still had things to say that we all need to hear and more importantly to demonstrate by his example. Because, despite his predilection for peppering his discourse with a superabundance of some of the more under-utilised words in the English language, his story was one which could summed up in just one word: Love. He truly lived his life in the service of others, often in a quite otherworldly way. He didn't do those things because they would be seen; he didn't ask for praise, he simply did them because he believed and lived out as nearly as any I know the simple and yet at times impossibly hard message of Jesus: "love one another as I have loved you". The vast outpouring of messages of sadness, love, of memories, stories and his acts of kindness have touched us more than you know and tell the story of a man who was many things to many people, some who literally owe their livelihoods and even lives to him,(including James and me), who retired at 70 and then went on to work for another 16years teaching in Tamale medical school and then leading by example in his beloved Shekhinah clinic. He gave money, he gave his skills, he gave wisdom but mostly he gave time to people: for family, for friends, for his patients; because he believed everyone was made in the image of God and therefore worthy of time, of blessing and of inestimable value. The one thing that we don't have today, of course, is time. So there is precious little time to tell you about the transformative love between him and his darling Joan his wife of only a few months but his soulmate. with whom he walked along the canal, laughed, listened to afternoon plays on the wireless and had so much fun. There is not time to fully explain his life journey graciously stepping over obstacles via duty, service,self sacrifice,discipline and love of others to a profound self love at last. There is not time to tell you of his vision of the purity of Heaven the day before he died, nor to fully express his dying wish that we focus more on Public Health, ‘prevention is better than cure' he always said; on freeing ourselves from pollution of all kinds including in the air, the water and in our hearts. There is not time to recount the names of the people whom he wanted to bless on his final morning on earth, nor those he touched during his life as son, brother, father, uncle, grandfather, teacher, friend, healer and doctor, and husband. Nor to describe the depth of his devotion to us, his family and friends, and to our mum, Patricia. There is no time to recite all the verse, the poetry, the aphorisms and Bible verses he held in his extraordinary mind. Indeed there is not even time now to worry about whether whatever it was that had happened had actually occurred in 1956 or the January of '57. No there is simply not enough time-he wanted to do so much more- the clinic at Eduma, replanting the orange farm, installing solar panels on everything that moves, or ensuring the universal acceptance of wearing sandals with socks-even with black tie [and getting away with it]. In truth Dad simply wanted to right the wrongs of the world one by one and like the Good Samaritan he never wanted to pass by on the other side. In his last year of life he packed in more than most of us fit into 5, most importantly with his precious Joan, they brought each other untold happiness over vanishingly short months, yet enough to last a lifetime. There really isn't time to recapture just how much he hated smoking or to describe the lengths he went to to stay healthy, the assiduous training of mind, body and spirit to keep himself well in order to do more good. It was ironic therefore that it should have been a rare-as-hen's-teeth cancer, something impossible to prevent, that should have taken him in the end over such a short period of time. You should have seen him argue his case for life with the hospital doctors. "What if the inventor of insulin had given up at the last hurdle or the Good Samaritan really had passed by on the other side?" he offered. He had them speechless. But in the end he understood, and without fear or suffering he died so, so well in the arms of James and Joan and me, still maintaining a tuneful bass line to a Bach aria minutes before he took his leave. Many of you will have heard him quote William Osler's Aequanimitas, or the cultivation of equanimity-treating those two impostors Triumph and Disaster just the same, and Dad rarely got overexcited about anything, but notable exceptions include seeing his disproportionate joy at learning to stir soup ( he still had so very far to go..), drinking tequila with his grandchildren on the eve of his wedding and literally anytime he met you at the airport when he would do a terribly cute little hopping clapping dance. You see he didn't need outward displays to demonstrate his coolness-it oozed from within. Like the time he was accosted by some pranksters, as he euphemistically called them, in a dark alley in Cardiff as a medical student. He was surrounded, and one of them menacingly approached him, then brandishing a broken glass bottle demanded that he turn out his pockets. What did Dad do? Run? Panic, shout or fight? No. He held out his hand and said "my name's Bill-what's yours?" at which they simply dropped everything and ran away- quite taken aback by his other-worldliness. You see he just didn't do things the way that other people did. I first became aware that my father was mortal at the age of 16 whilst studying Julius Caesar for O levels; at the same time I also sensed his immortality-that his legacy would live on and on. I decided then that when the time came I would use these words to eulogise him. Dad was not given to self-aggrandisement and didn't properly ever really realise his true worth. So I trust that he will forgive the use of Mark Anthony's final speech to give him a fitting tribute: "This was the noblest...of them all: His life was gentle, and the elements So mixed in him that Nature might stand up And say to all the world "This was a man!" As he was dying he was surrounded by a host of people telling him what he meant to them and he would listen and querulously gesture to the Heavens as if to say "Are you sure you've got the right person dear boy, I owe everything to the Good Lord". Dad had unwittingly become the man who said to Jesus "When did I see you naked and clothe you, imprisoned and visit you, or thirsty and give you water?" And Jesus replied "Each time you did these things for the least of my children, you did it for me." And finally we asked him, this kind humble man, whether he understood how much he was loved and had loved others. And he looked at us with a twinkle in his eye and said "I've done alright haven't I?" And we answered: Yes Billy. You did more than alright. You were a good and faithful servant from beginning to your remarkable end.