SWLSbench – by Jack Fifield & Ella Wilcox
A family has been reunited with a tribute bench blown into the sea in stormy weather – after it made a 75-mile journey across the Irish Sea.
The seat commemorating the life of father William Batcock crashed into the water as Storm Darragh battered the country on December 5.
William, also known as Bill, passed away in 2018, 18 months after he was diagnosed with leukemia.
An outdoorsman, Bill’s family put his name on a bench overlooking the sea in Anglesey, Wales – where he would regularly go on caravan holidays.
His family had no idea the bench had been blown away until January 28, when daughter Helen Wharton, 45, received a Facebook message saying it had been found 75 miles away in Drigg, Cumbria.
Helen, who lives in Warrington, Cheshire, said: “I couldn’t believe it at first. We actually didn’t know it had gone.
“We’d been in the summer, but we hadn’t managed to get back to it since. With us not being aware it was gone, it was just a total surprise really.
“I messaged the lady back straight away, and I was like ‘yeah, that’s my dad’s bench, is it still there, have you got it?’”
The finder, Megan O’Gorman, 37, then returned back to where the bench had washed up, tied a rope around it, and brought it inland.
Included on the bench is a line from a poem the outdoors-lover wrote, with the line “for me it has to be the sea.”
Helen, who works for a computer repair business set up by her late father, said: “She was so lovely – she literally said ‘give me half an hour and I’ll go and see if it’s still there’.
“She went back, she took some rope with her, she tied the bench to her back, and carried it back up to her car and took it back to her home so it was safe.”
Bill’s family now plan to travel to Cumbria in half term to meet Megan and bring the bench back home.
She added: ““We’ve definitely said it’s a sign.
“There’s just so many weird coincidences, we just think ‘is he trying to tell us something’.”
The broken bench will now be taken home and turned into a garden feature, while local council Amlwch Council is organising a replacement to go back up on the coast.
Helen added: “He was just so lovely, he really was. Everyone that ever met him just said how lovely he was.
“He was so chatty, he would literally talk to anybody. He made fri wherever he went, he was always chatting.
“He just loved life, he absolutely loved life. He loved to walk, he loved to be outdoors. He was really active, he loved to climb.
“He was like my best friend really, we climbed every week together. He just loved life really. He was definitely taken far too soon.
“When he was treated at the hospital they said he was the fittest 68 year old they’d ever treated.
“It just goes to show, you never know what’s around the corner.”
