A Centenarian Looks Back: The Memoirs of William Rigg

William Rigg was born into a humble Cumbrian family in 1911, eventually becoming one of 13 children. His mother died when he was three and by the age of five he was having to put up with a stepmother’s bullying. Often sleeping three in a bed and sharing shoes with his siblings because there weren’t enough pairs to go round, he scarcely knew what it was to eat a decent meal. He would scrounge leftovers, steal turnips and potatoes to supplement the family menu and eat hawthorn and nettle leaves from the hedgerows. A bright child, he had to pass up the chance to go to grammar school because his parents couldn’t afford the uniform. Despite all this Bill grew up healthy, happy and fulfilled, serving with honour in France, Italy, Austria and North Africa in the Second World War, impressing employers in a variety of jobs from farm work and roadmending to process work at a nuclear power plant, and raising a happy and successful family. This book is published as Bill and his family celebrate his one hundredth birthday.