Bill Annett OBE (1912–2004) Secretary to the FRAME Trustees

The FRAME Trustees and Staff were greatly saddened to learn of the sudden death of Bill Annett on Tuesday, 9 November 2004, as a result of a heart attack.

For all of us, Bill has always been connected with FRAME, since it was as long ago as 1978 that the Charity’s first Chairman, Mrs Dorothy Hegarty, asked him to spend some time at the FRAME Office in Worple Road, Wimbledon, to help her to deal with what she saw as a recalcitrant office staff.

By that time, Bill was already 66 years old, with a successful and colourful personal and professional life behind him. He probably had no idea that he was embarking on a new, and no less successful, career, involving taking a stand in the middle ground in support of FRAME and the Three Rs of Russell and Burch — a career in which he was still deeply involved, at the age of 92, on the day that he was struck down.

Bill was never an actual employee of FRAME, butalways a consultant. However, whatever his formal status, he was first and foremost a friend, as well as a reliable and always-available source of encouragement and wise counsel.

It was always great fun to be with him, because he had a considerable fund of jokes and a remarkable breadth of experiences to call upon. I like to think that he would be amused by the irony of the fact that, on the day before he died, we received the latest version of the FRAME headed notepaper. He always insisted that our notepaper should be up-todate, but now, sadly, it must be changed again.

A full obituary will follow in due course, but since this issue of ATLA was about to go to press, I have taken the opportunity to include this brief announcement.

Michael Balls

Chairman of the FRAME Trustees