To everyone who was able to go to the funeral and for those who were unable to go for whatever reason, I have copied and pasted Bruces eulogy for you to look at. His funeral was an amazing event (if such a thing can be called amazing) as so many people turned up (approx 150 people), including buses of cast and crew from Corrie and Emmerdale. It was such a tribute to Bruce and I felt truly proud to be his wife. I met people I hadnt met before and those I hadnt seen for ages and it was so nice to connect with you all and share a hug with other people who cherished Bruce. People stayed and talked and shared memories at the gathering afterwards and it just felt like such a comforting and supportive place to be. Thank you all for coming and also for donating so generously (we raised £1500 for Leukaemia and Lymphoma on the day). I think we gave Bruce the best send off. With lots of love and best wishes to you all. Helen xxx Eulogy for Bruce: Bruce was born in Liverpool on the 24th January 1957, the younger son of Charles and Joyce Wilson. He was brought up with his older brother Geoff in Wolverhampton for the first four years of his life and then when his father got a job as a senior accountant at Martins bank in Leeds, the family moved up to Yorkshire. He was quite a shy child, but very loving and affectionate with a beautiful big smile which lit up and filled his whole face. His oldest cousin Barbara remembers him as a “delightful and sweet-natured little boy who won the hearts of all.” Bruce grew up in the Gledhow Valley area of North Leeds and had fond memories of roaming free in the nearby woods with his brother and his friends. He went to Chapeltown Primary School and followed Geoff to Leeds Modern Grammar School. In 1970, Geoff left home and joined the RAF and sadly two years later, their father Charles died unexpectedly and rather suddenly when Bruce was only 15. Bruce soon became the man of the house, fixing and mending things, helping and supporting his mother. Their relationship was and remained very close up until her death in February 2013. By his own admission, Bruce lost interest in his A Level studies - discovering girls, motorbikes and playing guitar in rock bands. Failing to get into the RAF and Huddersfield Polytechnic to do electronics he left school not knowing quite what he was going to do. Along with several of his contemporaries he decided to go into the civil service as a benefits officer, a job which he did not particularly enjoy and left him determined never to work in an office again. After 3 years, he left and got a job at Eddies’ Motorcycles. Some months later, he became a despatch rider for Yorkshire TV. In 1985, a post came up for a camera assistant and finally Bruce found something he really loved, something that combined his love of photography and films with his ability to excel at anything he turned his hand to. One of his first jobs was down in the South of France, working on a drama based on the Graham Greene novel “May we borrow your husband” and starring the late actor, Dirk Bogarde. In the late 80s and early 90s, Bruce worked on Yorkshire Television’s flagship and award-winning First Tuesday documentary series. The subject matter concerned social issues and current affairs stories from around the world. Bruce travelled to Iceland, Europe, South America, North America, Cuba, Thailand, India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Russia working with camera greats like Mike Simpson and Alan Wilson. He also worked on the innovative and infamous “Jimmy’s”, one of the first docu-soaps, detailing the everyday life of doctors, nurses and patients at St. James’s Hospital, Leeds. In 1990-1991, he worked as a focus puller on the TV comedy drama series “Stay Lucky.” He gained skills and hugely valuable experience and eventually became a cameraman himself. He discovered he had a natural talent and ability behind the lens and continued to learn his craft on various programmes. His big break came with the filming of the hugely successful Heartbeat. He was one of the first cameramen on this popular and well-loved drama which first aired in April 1992. Filmed in Goathland, Bruce spent much of his time filming in beautiful locations on the North York Moors. He worked with many famous actors who cut their teeth on the show including Daniel Craig. Cast and crew soon became one big family with close and lasting friendships cementing over the years. Becoming disillusioned with budget cuts, mass redundancies and significant changes in terms and conditions, Bruce left Yorkshire TV at the end of 1994 and decided to go freelance. As a freelance cameraman he continued to work on Heartbeat but also began working on a variety of other drama programmes filmed in different parts of the UK including Casualty, Holby City, Grange Hill, The Governor and The Last Salute. Directors knew they could rely on him to suggest great shots. His professionalism and the observation by many on set that he instinctively knew what to do meant that he became an extremely respected and sought after cameraman. Much-loved and hugely admired, he was a mentor and inspiration for younger camera operators like Andrew Sheard, Kevin Boyle and Carl Saville to name but a few. In 1996, Bruce met Helen. A Clinical Psychologist and newly arrived to Leeds, Helen was working in a Community Mental Health Team. One of the Community Psychiatric Nurses in the team just happened to be a good friend of Bruce’s and a fellow band member. Bruce and Helen hit it off straightaway. He wooed her with his cooking, competence and resourcefulness and his zest and passion for life. She loved the fact that he was a mix of the sensible and the wild rather like she was. Where she was cautious and prone to worry at times, he was decisive and unafraid to take risks. They spent many happy hours driving around the Dales as Bruce introduced Helen to the County he loved. A year later, Helen moved into Bruce’s little cottage in Barwick in Elmet. In May 1998, Bruce and Helen got married at The Treasurer’s House in York. In July 1999, they moved to The Grange in the neighbouring village of Scholes and a few months later in November their daughter Erin was born, followed by their son Rory in July 2002. Wishing to spend more time with his new family, Bruce took local work. He worked on Emmerdale for several years and then in 2008 as the children got older he began working the other side of the Pennines in Manchester on Coronation Street on a more regular basis. He genuinely loved being a cameraman and told people that given the choice, he wouldn’t want to do any other kind of work. In the last year or so though, he found the hours and the long commute on the M62 more and more demanding and last year he began to make plans to scale back and head towards retirement. And what of the essence of the man? Physically, Bruce was a big, tall and robust man. Not only was he strong in body, but he also had incredible strength of mind. He was extremely capable, dependable and reliable. As his mother in law often used to say, if you were stuck on a desert island with Bruce you knew you would be in good hands. He would instinctively know what to do and would just get on with it. Bruce was impressively and enviably good at pretty much anything he turned his hand to and had a huge range of talents and interests: he loved computers and was very tech-savvy. This was a man who could make and assemble his own PC in a day! He was fantastic at DIY and had great taste, decorating most of The Grange room by room in between work and other responsibilities. He was a brilliant cook who loved trying out new recipes from around the world and inventing his own. His curries and barbeques were legendary. He was a wonderful host and during family holidays down in Norfolk, he liked nothing better than making delicious meals for the extended family which everyone looked forward to and savoured. He also loved making elderflower champagne, sloe gin, gooseberry ice-cream and plum and damson jams using produce from the garden. He loved good food and fine wine and his annual meals with Helen at the Box Tree in Ilkley were the highlight of the year. Bruce was also an excellent photographer and a lover of films. One of his favourite films was “Withnail and I” and he relished quoting big chunks of it word for word. He loved music – particularly rock and blues. He enjoyed going to gigs and he also loved playing the guitar in various bands over the years. He jammed and rehearsed regularly with his latest band, Alan Turner Overdrive right up until the end of last year. He loved his cars and his motorbikes – he got a thrill out of going really fast but he was also one of the best and safest drivers you could ever meet. Bruce worked hard at whatever he did. He liked to do a job well and always had some project on the go. Helen was a lucky woman in that Bruce was a rare breed of man: never idle, he could multi-task, he loved food-shopping, he cleaned up after himself in the kitchen and he was tidy, efficient and organised in everything he did. On the flip side there were a few bones of contention: his love of gadgets and his insistence on regularly updating his electronic paraphernalia; why have one guitar, when you could have 7? Also, whatever the activity be it climbing or cycling, Bruce had to buy the whole outfit and every accessory that went with it. At work, he had a jacket and pair of trainers for every permutation of the weather. Helen used to joke with him that he had more shoes than Imelda Marcos. When Dirk Bogarde gave Bruce a copy of the third volume of his autobiography: “An Orderly Man”, he signed the book and wrote: “For Bruce Wilson…thanks for your care.” A few simple words but they capture the essence of the man. Bruce took care with everything he did. He had high standards and took pride in getting things right and doing things well. He also showed great care towards those he liked and loved. He showed his love not so much through words but by the things that he did for others, the thoughtful acts, and the solicitude he showed every day of his life. Not only did he have the gift of friendship but he saw the value and importance of investing in his friendships. He was a generous, helpful, reliable and loyal friend. It was not surprising that many of his friends counted Bruce as their best friend and were genuinely proud to be one of his friends. Bruce was also an extremely caring son, husband and father. Coming late to fatherhood, he didn’t always find it easy. The stress of the long hours and grinding commute could turn him into a self-confessed “grumpy old bugger.” That said, he adored Erin and Rory, took huge pride in their achievements and was a most loving father. Erin and her fellow class mates will remember him filming their Year 6 production of Grease, starring Erin as Sandy; and Rory will remember how against the odds, his dad managed to finish work early, rush back across the M62, and nip into the school hall just in time to watch him play Grandpa in his Year 6 production of School Daze. Bruce went out of his way to provide his children with new experiences and loved taking them camping to the Dales and to Anglesey. As with others he cared about, he would do anything for them. They will both sorely miss their comforting bear hugs with their big Daddy. In the last few years of his life, Bruce bought his beloved Mazda and went on numerous Mazda runs with the Yorkshire MX5 Owners Club. Erin and Rory took turns sitting in the passenger seat most Sundays. With the roof down, they loved speeding through the country lanes of the Dales or up to Whitby, stopping off for a pub lunch along the way. More recently, Bruce developed a passion for cycling. He graduated from a mountain bike to a road bike and would set off on increasingly longer cycle rides. Last year he was going on 50-mile bike rides every weekend, building up for a charity Coast to Coast cycle ride for Cancer Research with friends, Kevin, Sean, and Michael. In late October, 2013, they cycled 108 miles over two days and the photos taken showed Bruce at 56 looking fit, healthy and full of life. What a cruel irony when only two months later he began to complain of feeling breathless and tired. A sharp pain in his side on the 17th January 2014; a subsequent call-out to the Ambulance and a few hours later - the diagnosis of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukaemia. A bolt out of the blue; a devastating shock to everyone who knew him and particularly for those who knew that Bruce had already had a brush with death several years earlier. Diagnosed with a very deep melanoma on his back in 2005, Bruce had defied the odds and survived, even when the melanoma turned up in his lymph nodes in 2006 and then again in 2010. What a tragic turn of fate then for him to finally succumb to death in his fifties, just like his father and sadly his brother Geoff who some four years ago, also died of cancer. For well over 8 months, Bruce bore the cancer treatment with stoicism and courage. He was determined to hang on in there for his family and he maintained a positive outlook throughout the long stays in hospital and the gruelling rounds of chemo. In the beginning, his mother-in-law suggested that it might help to keep a diary of his experiences and always one to embrace new technology, Bruce decided to start his blog and what a revelation that was. Followers soon discovered what a great writer Bruce was – his witty and eloquent accounts of his time in the Bexley Wing, St. James’s Hospital were ‘liked’ and commented on by many. With his tenacity and mental strength, he inspired those who didn’t even know him and humbled those who did. The unstinting love, support and encouragement that came his way via his blog was testament to the man. When Bruce knew he was dying, he insisted he wanted to come home and sleep a few nights in his and Helen’s enormous new bed, referred to by them as ‘the big white cloud.’ Helen came home with him in the palliative care ambulance and brought him into the living room to see the profiling bed that had been delivered earlier in the day. He took one look at it and said “I’m not going to sleep in that.” Helen went to make hot chocolates in the kitchen for Erin and Rory who had just returned from school and a few minutes later, Erin rushed in and said “Mum, Mum, Daddy’s half way up the stairs.” Very breathless but determined, Bruce was shuffling up the stairs on his bottom with Rory offering encouraging words from up on the landing. “What are you doing up there?” Helen asked, half telling him off but half-smiling, knowing her husband all too well. “I’m going up to our bed,” he replied. He managed 3 nights in ‘the big white cloud’ before he finally assented that he needed to be downstairs. Less than 2 days later, with Helen by his side, he took his last breath. *** Bruce was given a china heart by Helen a couple of years ago, upon which was inscribed… “Beneath this grumpy exterior lies the heart of a Yorkshire hero.” Bruce, your life was cut short but your heroism will live long in our hearts and our minds.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 18:43:26 +0000