In the mid-1920s, Bill was fast establishing himself as one of the most proficient amateur jockeys in Ireland.
'I rode different places for no advantage to myself, only disadvantage,' he recalled. 'I got no money. You could call it sport if you like - risking your neck on every fence.'
When he wasn't riding horses, Bill was running the family farm, harvesting wheat and supplying milk to Lucan Dairies in Dublin.
In 1957, he married Dolly, but it was to be a dreadfully short marriage.
'Two and a half years later I was back in church again to bury her.' He was left with a small boy, Edwin.
Astonishingly, he kept an accurate diary throughout his life.
He was born in 1902 at Tobinstown, Co Carlow, a month after the Boer War ended. He was ten when the Titanic sank, and aged 15 when his brother Rupert was killed in action in Belgium. Aged 27, he watched Wall Street crash and was 37 when Hitler invaded Poland. Bill was 61 when JFK was shot, and 87 when the Berlin Wall came down. He was 99 years old - and still keeping a diary - when the Twin Towers collapsed.
