Vale Bill Westwood 1936 - 2022. Updates
We were all saddened to hear of the passing of our friend and long-time member of NSBC - Bill Westwood.
Bill passed away peacefully on 10 July 2022 at Northbridge.
Bill was 85 years old - nearly 86.
His long time bridge partner -Tom Goodyer - remembers:
"At school he was dux of Fort Street Boys High. Immediately after school he joined MLC and commenced studying to be an actuary, qualifying a few years later. His career took him through many areas of MLC, including computer systems, actuarial calculations, branch and general management. Later he was chief actuary of ANZ Bank's life insurance subsidiary and a director of St George Bank.
He was also a keen sportsman, excelling at tennis and golf. So it was not a surprise when he told me he would like to try duplicate bridge. I had already been playing a few years at Lindfield and he joined there about 1980, making friends rapidly with a group including Paul Puusaari and Peter Jamieson. He had early success, winning a country teams congress event.
Paul taught the group the Blue Club system. Bill became fascinated by bidding systems and he learned Precision which he played with Roger Januske for many years.
In the mid-1980s Forcing Pass systems gained some prominence and Bill and I began playing one. We had some success, winning an event called the City of Sydney Teams in two successive years for which the prize was representing Sydney in a worldwide inter-cities teams competition at an Asian city, Hong Kong and Tokyo respectively. Our overseas performance was not memorable. Bill was fastidious about the ethics of the game and we reverted to natural systems because of unease that artificial systems were giving us an unfair advantage over players unfamiliar with them.
COVID and declining health ended Bill's table appearances in 2020, but we played together online almost daily until 2022.
With his death I have lost a friend of over 60 years. He is survived by his wife Bev, his son Steven (a fine bridge player) daughters Jen, Christine and Sarah and their families."
John Mottram remembers:
"Towards the end of last century, he started to play with his son Steven, and for a number of years they played with Tom and me as a team. We qualified 5 years in a row to play in the final stages of the State Teams, once missing out in the final by a small margin.
He represented Australia in the inaugural World Seniors Championship in Burmuda in 2000 with Neville Moses (NSW), John Brockwell (ACT), John Ashworth (WA), John Mottram (NSW) and Bobby Evans (NSW)."
Bill had many successes in Championship events (he had over 4,600 Master Points) at NSBC as well as the old Lindfield Bridge Club, including the following:
Winner of Mens Teams Championship - 1988, 1994, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012. Bill was presented with the trophy for this event when LBC ceased to exist.
Winner of Club Teams Championship - 1982, 1984, 1985, 1997, 2011
Winner of Mixed Teams - 1984, 1986, 1989, 1990, 1999
Winner of GNOT Direct Qualifier - 2013
Bill was in the NSW Seniors Team in 1996 and 1997
He was on the LBC Committee in 1985, 1986 and 1987
