Mr William E. Fairbairn (Earth Science and Engineering 1968)

Provided by Mr Alan Dickson on behalf of Angela Fairbairn

Bill (Skip) Fairbairn

Skip died at the age of 60 on 4th April 2008 after a year long fight with cancer. He was cheerful even the last time I saw him a week or so before his death. Born into a mining family at Whitehaven, Northumberland Bill attended school at Bishop’s Stortford and must have been quite bright as he came to Imperial College at the age of 17. He studied Mining Engineering at the Royal School of Mines in the 1965-68 period. At Imperial his interests included the Wine Tasting Society of which he was secretary, a hobby that he enjoyed for the rest of his life until he had lost his sense of taste with throat cancer.

On graduation he emigrated to Australia and spent six years at Broken Hill before transferring to Thailand and then Saudi Arabia, holidaying in the UK between stints and getting a couple of large motorbikes. He hadn’t been naturalized in Australia so found he couldn’t easily come back. He spent a short time with a UK roads department where he got involved in computers. He retrained as a Systems Analyst and worked for about eight years at this for such companies as Tesco and Laing. It was during this time he got involved in amateur dramatics where he met his beautiful wife Angela and they were married in 1983 so earlier this year he celebrated his Silver Wedding Anniversary. Son Peter was born in 1987 and daughter Lyndall in 1989 just months before he managed to re-emigrate to Australia, this time as a System Analyst instead of a Mining Engineer. The family moved to Paraburdoo with Bill working for Hamersley Iron. After several years they found out he was a mining engineer and made him Tech Services Superintendent and then Mine Manager.

Bill transferred to Perth on a special project, I believe to reduce numbers and planned himself out of a job. He had a short stint as a management consultant with KPMG before going out on his own. A year later he was back in the management consulting business with a firm called Assertivity where he remained for the last six years.

Bill’s interests were singing, diving, wine and food, all things he had to give up with throat cancer. He was keen on the great outdoors with pastimes such as camping and photography. Bill was a regular church attendee and the church at his funeral was packed out with family, friends and colleagues. Yesterday I was told that in Paraburdoo he was the President of the Yacht Club, I said what sailing was there? – it was just an excuse for a night at the local watering hole!

Alan Dickson