Dear Blogger
R.I.P. PHIL WILLIAMS, Princes Terrace, Bridge End of Ruyton XI Towns
Died, aged 66, in Shrewsbury hospital on 10th November 2021. See attached photograph by Dai Roberts.
Phil Williams, with his long hair and beard, was one of Ruyton`s characters. He lived with his brother Roger at Princes Terrace, opposite the Old Bridge Inn. Their youngest brother, Gordon, lives in Oswestry with his family.
Phil was the friendliest of men, with a thirst for knowledge. He loved gadgets, whether to do with cooking or the television and, judging from his knowledge of how to do everything, YouTube must have been high on his list of watched videos. Phil was also a film buff who knew everyone who had appeared in which film and when.
I got to know Phil very soon after we moved to the Brownhill in 1969. He was someone who was always ready to help anyone, often taking a dog for a walk when the owner was no longer able to, he called all these pooches, Old Ned, and he always loved to stop for a chat about anything and everything. When they were building the estate in the Bridge Field, Phil took it upon himself to keep an eye on the site, making very sure equipment or materials did not disappear.
Phil worked for the council on the roads for years and I particularly remember the dreadful winter of 1982 when his digger was lost in a snowdrift on Oswestry racecourse, so his boss told him to clear the pavements in his village. Unfortunately, this was some days after the snowfall and the pavement had a three inch covering of solid ice, as many people who could not go to work, had walked up and down the village between the three pubs. Phil diligently hacked his way from the Bridge Inn to just past Brownhill House when the thaw came and the whole lot melted overnight.
Phil`s funeral is at 3.30pm on Thursday, 9th December, at Shrewsbury Crematorium.
Phil`s Dad, Bill was a regular in the Bridge Inn, he also had worked on the roads but retired when he was virtually blind. Similarly, Bill`s brother Tom retired from the roads when he went blind but went on a course in Torquay and met a lovely lady and lived happily ever after with her family in Liverpool. Bill and Tom`s youngest brother was Ray `Willpower` Williams, read all about Ruyton`s Strongman, a legend in his own lifetime, in https://www.eleventowns.uk/history.html under PEOPLE.
