William Alexander Gault passed away on the morning of the 21st April 2009, and it was great sadness to recieve the news, Willie or Wag as he was known was a character, so were do I start. I was one of the lucky ones that got to know Willie well as he was a private person and did not feel comfortable in crowds of people he did not know, many a time he would not fly because too many people were present and he would wait till most had left, but a more likeable, kind, and generous man you could never meet, and such a character many a time he had me laughing so hard my sides were splitting.
Willie had been a member of the club for about fifteen years, I remember the day I met him vividly, but the story begins before that when we were at Ramseys field, we used to see this wee van parked on the hill almost every time we were flying and of course we were curious, then we moved to the Ballybogey road and sure enough the van appeared again at the top of the road, so one day Robert Wallace and myself ambushed the wee van at the top of the road and we found Willie complete with plane and radio in the back, he had been coming for months but always turned back anyway we persuaded Willie to come on down to the club as there was only us two present ( in fact more came out later). Well that broke the ice for Willie and Robert soon had him flying, at that site we had a terrible problem with midgys they were cruel I think they came from Scotland and we tried everything to deter them, one day Willie said he had found the answer he had used Mr Muscle oven cleaner, well it deter them but also the skin off his face, we laughed for many a year about that, fortunately we got it all washed off before any real damage was done.
Willie loved his fast deltas and also his big plane a eurobat with a 62cc petrol engine, he brought it along to the club one particular day when I was there with my son Jason during the school holidays and after it was rigged up and I set the JR347 radio to the correct model (it took him a while to get used to the computer wizardy) he put her up then handed the radio to me, now I am a little paranoid flying other peoples aircraft at the best of times but I must admit I found it uncomfortable as it was my first time on the sticks of a big model and I like my models twitchy so I immediatley passed the radio back and Willie passed it on to Jason who was about thirteen at the most and just started flying, well Jason flew it beautifully and Willie loved this encouraging Jason to fly lower and inverted, my heart was in my mouth, but Willie said to me if he crashes it I will just fix it. Willie loved that big plane I took a video of it and edited it on the computer putting it on to a video for him, it was when I first tried my hand at movie making and the title was "Wiilie told us he had a big one so we had to see it" and I used the music from the software programme on the intro and proudly gave the video to Willie. Well eventually he told me that when he got home he put it on but when he saw the Title and the cheesy adult movie style music he switched it off because the wife was watching it with him and he thought I had gave him a porno film as a joke, he watched the first time on his own before proudly showing the wife.
Wilie had a large field at the back of his house which the farmer let him fly in, and one day Willie came down dead stick with one of his WOT4s' and floated down the field when he found the model he had landed on the only rock in the field and cracked the engine casing.
On Thursday nights which is club night Willie would leave early because it was his Chinese night, every Thursday night he and the wife would have a chinese meal, I asked Willie what he used to have he said liver onions and bacon chips peas and gravy, but as far as Willie was concerned it was a chinese meal as it came from the chinese take away.
Willie would let anyone fly his models and was generous to a fault and all of us at Ballymoney Model Flying Club will miss him and his craic. I could write for hours about Willie and the stories that he made us laugh with but I will leave that for another day.
I am proud to have flown him and having him as a friend, and our condolences and sympathys go to his wife and family.
You may be gone but you will never be forgotten, every time I open or close the wee metal gate at the club (which Willie brought and erected) I smile as the memories flood back.