Rotary in their blood
Helping others by giving back
By Isabelle Southcott
For William Mitchell-Banks, Rotary is a way of life. It's also a means of helping others in ways he couldn't possibly do on his own.
"I've been a Rotarian for 44 years," says William, "and my wife Ruth has been up to the elbows in it with me." Son Paul is president of Vancouver Arbutus Rotary Club and daughter Miriam is president of the Calgary Centennial Rotary Club. Daughter Sara, a Powell River Rotarian, was the reason William and his wife moved here three years ago.
Ruth went into heart failure and William fell on the ice one day and broke his hip. And so they came to Powell River to be with Sara, a registered nurse, who in the final stages of becoming a nurse practitioner.
"My muffler fell off. My windshield wipers stopped working and our doors got stuck. We began to fall apart."
The early years
William, who is 81, was born in London, England. He earned a scholarship to Oxford University in 1947 when he was 15 but because he was too young, he had to wait a year to go to Oxford. He attended the University College Hospital and married Ruth in 1953, while still a medical student.
"When we first married I was a house father and Ruth was the bread winner. I loved it. I saw my daughter (Theresa's) first steps and would walk around with Gray's Anatomy under one arm and diaper pins in the other."
William got his medical feet wet in the TB and chest unit at University College Hospital in the Seven Dials of London, and held a several other posts before landing his first job in general practice in Nottinghamshire Mine Fields in Ollerton.
But it was in West Bromwich, the Black Country, a part of England where industry and housing sprawl like "an ugly stain on the green tablecloth of England's midlands;" a land of soot and noise, slums and dirt that William learned a life lesson that humbles him to this day.
"It was late at night, my partner was tucked up in bed and I opened up the waiting room door. There was a woman, an Indian woman, with a shawl over her head."
She had come alone in the dark of the night to a doctor's office--a male doctor's office--when she was forbidden to look at or touch men.
"I could she was clearly in pain; I held her hand, it was hot," William recalls, choking back the tears, "and she stuck out her tongue. It was peritonitis."
The woman spoke Hindi and William could not communicate with her but she had to be admitted to hospital.
"Two uniformed men came and picked her up and took her to the hospital. I think about how awful she must have felt, men leading her into a dark van without knowing what was happening, where she was going."
That night William vowed to learn enough Punjabi and Hindi to run his practice.
"I couldn't have bought a melon at a bazaar but I was able to ask people general questions. Word got around that here was a doctor who spoke splendid Hindi! But I didn't."
Roles in Rotary
William's love of learning has fuelled him all his life.
In 1959, a Mexican exchange student stayed with the Mitchell-Banks family and William knew he had to learn Spanish.
"I went to Mexico and became fluent in three months. I was passionate about the language and the people. I was dreaming in Spanish. I was writing poetry in Spanish."
William says: "The head is the only bit that really matters and the body is just a mechanism for carrying it around."
Sara is in charge of her Rotary club's web page, and William is available to help if needed. "One of my hobbies is doing web pages for people," he says, downplaying how much he knows about it.
Although Ruth isn't a "Rotarian" she is a fully shares his Rotary work and, when Festival of Performing Arts time rolls around, she takes on the telephoning. William detests phoning! "We chase up volunteers for the Festival and make sure people are at the right place at the right time," he says. And with three auditoria to keep track of, spreadsheets and databases are a must!
William is Sara's father but the two are also friends. "It's amazing to have children who as people are better than oneselfÉall five of them," he says.
Sara and William enjoy hiking together. Last month, they hiked around Haywire Bay where he exercised another hobby of his, photography. "I enjoy taking pictures of people," he says.
It's the sharing and helping that gives William a great deal of satisfaction. "Rotary has been to me a huge outlet. I have been able to do things with Rotary that I could never have done on my own."
First Rotary meeting
William and his family moved to Prince Rupert from Yorkshire in 1964. It was there, in Prince Rupert, that William met Rotary.
At the time, William knew nothing about Rotary. "I thought it was a secret society. Six months after joining I was in charge of a radio-television auction, a big fundraiser for Prince Rupert."
He believes Rotary should be able to fundraise and contribute to the town's fun or "fizz" as he calls it.
"As a child I was sent home from school because I was dyslexic and they could not teach me. Through my belonging to a Rotary club, Ruth and I were able to set up a team of people who were able to teach children with dyslexia to read. I would never have done that by myself."
After 14 years in Prince Rupert, the Mitchell-Banks' pulled up stakes and moved to Creston where William joined Rotary again. There he started a RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Awards) Camp. "My effort was what the Quakers call 'core and outer.' You spring from your own inner essence and from that you can spring out into the experience of life."
William has held most offices in the Rotary club at one time or another. He was president of his Prince Rupert Club and Creston Club and District Governor.
"The thing a Rotarian can do is to bring in another Rotarian," he says.
If, by chance, you come across a distinguished gentleman with an inquisitive mind and a kind disposition who speaks with an English accent, you might be chatting to William Mitchell-Banks. And if he brings up the subject of Rotary sometime during the conversation, chances are very good you are talking to William Mitchell-Banks.
