BILL Laithwaite has spent the past 45 years actively showing he cares for vulnerable people in the Bolton area.

He is the longest serving member of the Bolton Lions organisation — part of the international movement formed 100 years ago in America by Chicago businessman Melvin Jones.

Today, the Lions are still ordinary people doing extraordinary things to help others and supporting good causes in groups all over the UK and all over the world.

Bill Laithwaite was, and is, just an “ordinary man”. He would tell you that himself.

He was born in Durham Street, off Halliwell Road, in Bolton 79 years ago, the middle child of five children. His early memories are of sitting on his father’s knee playing with a toy plane but his later childhood memories are rather darker. They involve an emaciated soldier returning from a Japanese prisoner of war camp in poor health.

Young Bill went to Chalfont Street Primary School and then on to Brownlow Fold Secondary School. He left at 15 to work at Belmont Paper Mill.

Always keen on nature, Bill would spend hours with his pals and their notebooks identifying the plants and wildlife they saw. It is a love of the countryside that has stayed with him.

He found a better job at local steel stockholders Markland Scowcroft and began a career spanning 35 years that would see him promoted through the company. From working in an office he became a representative for the firm, travelling around the North of England.

He married Pam — the girl he sat next to at a band concert in the Albert Hall — in 1959 and the couple made their home in Neston Avenue, Astley Bridge, where they still live happily today.

It was while Bill was working as a rep that he first came into contact with Bolton Lions. “I had a pal who lived in Lytham and he had joined the Lytham Lions,” explained Bill. “I told him that I wanted to do something more with my spare time, to join something, and he put me in touch with the secretary of Bolton Lions.”

The Bolton group had only been established a year or two then but was growing. Like today, they raised money for local good causes and here Bill found fellowship, friendship and a way of helping others.

Bolton Council used to hold lots of carnivals and galas then and we always had stalls where we used to raise money,” said Bill. “We always worked hard but it felt good because we knew we were raising that money to spend on local good causes, on local people.”

One of the earliest and most enduring projects that Bill was involved with was the Caring Christmas Appeal, run jointly by the Bolton Lions and then Bolton Evening News.

Initially, the Lions provided food parcels and toys for underprivileged families right across the borough. Later, aware of duplication with local Rotary clubs, the Lions concentrated on gifts for children, ensuring that hundreds of local youngsters were not disappointed on Christmas morning.

This campaign involved, as it does now, collecting toys at various drop-off points – as well as buying many new ones – and then working with agencies and organisations to give out suitable gifts to families who would have had little Christmas cheer otherwise.

Bill and his fellow Lions — and their wives — have always worked extremely hard on this campaign — sorting, bagging and distributing the welcome gifts. Often this has meant going to homes themselves.

For Bill, who had two stints as president of Bolton Lions and who was a leading figure in this campaign, charity certainly began at home. “I remember one Christmas Eve when I was just relaxing with my wife and friends after making lots of deliveries,” he stated.

“It was around 9pm when the phone rang. It was a woman in tears, begging for help for toys for her children. I’d had a delivery at the house and I could hardly not help her, could I?

“So two of us went out with gifts. She was waiting on the doorstep crying and was so grateful. It was the right thing to do and I’ve never forgotten her.”

The Lions’ work extends now to collections at supermarkets and their benevolence to helping individuals getting to hospital. They have raised thousands of pounds each year and changed the lives of families for decades.

Bill, like his fellow Lions, still gets real pleasure from helping others. “It is a good feeling,” he admitted. “I’ve always found most people very generous and basically good.

“Sometimes, someone will come up and put some money in my collecting tin and say ‘you helped my family when we really needed it so perhaps I can help others now.’ And then you know it’s all been worthwhile.”