Bill Kelly always gave us his best

Bill Kelly once told me (and not in a totally facetious manner) that he would have paid the CBC to let him host “Land and Sea.”

Now, if it had come down to the crunch, I have to believe Bill would have opted for a paycheque; and if he hadn’t, I’m sure his wife Flo, always the more practical of the Kelly marital duo (Bill would have been the first to admit such was the case), would have made sure that Bill kept his thoughts about remuneration out of earshot of the CBC bean-counters.

But his pronouncement about working for free (in that characteristically over-the-top but intoxicating way Bill had of making a point) did reflect the fact that Bill Kelly absolutely loved his work. And the “Land and Sea” hosting job was his journalistic Shangri-La, the culmination of a career that had taken him from the reportorial and news editor ranks of The Telegram to senior producer positions at “Here and Now.”

And there was no doubt his “Land and Sea” productions resonated with the public, an unabashedly personal style that worked magnificently as he ventured to every nook and cranny of Newfoundland, giving ordinary souls their justifiable place in the sun. A few of the more straitlaced journalistic types at the CBC sometimes pooh-poohed Bill’s style of participatory journalism, but the public sure got it. Bill’s ratings were always through the roof. (I remember being at the old St. John’s stadium with Bill one afternoon for a hockey game, and it was like walking the corridors with a rock star: “Love your stuff, Bill, b’y”; “how’s she goin’, Bill? Keep it up.” It’s a wonder he wasn’t forced to sign autographs.

The first time I ever laid eyes on Bill was back in 1972 at the old Evening Telegram building on Duckworth Street, my first day on the job, and Kelly was a sight to behold: engulfed in cigarette smoke, his head moving this way and that, like one of those bobble-head dolls, and pounding away at an oldfashioned R.C. Allen typewriter with a dedicated fierceness that would have you believe he was writing “War and Peace.”

In fact, it could have been a simple press release Bill was rewriting or a major journalistic hatchet job on the Moores administration; he was always in overdrive.

And Bill’s attack on a typewriter was a metaphor for the way in which he approached everything in life, with a phenomenal enthusiasm that seemed to have no bounds.

As everybody in the province is now aware, Bill, one of the best story-tellers the CBC has ever employed in this province (or anywhere else in the country, for that matter), died two weeks ago at the age of 71, after a lifelong battle with heart disease, an ailment that would have turned a lesser man into a couch potato.

But not Bill Kelly. He was determined that heart disease would not define who he was. He remained passionate about everything in his life: his job, his music, his cars, his friends. But most important of all, Flo and their children and grandchildren, and the rest of his family.

This past Monday evening, we all gathered at the GEO Centre on Signal Hill Road (appropriately, the exact location of the home where Bill grew up) for an old-fashioned Irish send-off (a morose wake it was definitely not), a few hours of singing and drinking and the telling of endless yarns about an amazingly unique man, a proud east-ender, an even prouder Newfoundlander.

Bill would have loved it. The atmosphere was near raucous, delightfully so.

When I was given the chance, the honour, to say something about Bill, I couldn’t help but remark that what I would remember the most about Bill was his extreme loyalty, how he always had my back, in the workplace, for sure, but, more importantly, outside newsrooms, in the real world.

Especially as a younger man, as an irresponsible reprobate, I always knew there was a safe haven for me in Bill and Flo’s home, a place at the supper table, a bed for a couple of nights when they thought I needed a dose of sanity, a taste of domestic stability.

Bill and Flo never gave up on me. And that is something that is impossible to quantify, nearly impossible to put into words.

Bill and I rarely went two or three days without engaging in an old-fashioned gab-fest on the phone, touching on the endless topics we had in common.

Our last conversation occurred hours before he died, and we both knew it was the last time we would talk.

The bond was evident, a bond we will have forever.

Cheers, Bill.

Bill and Flo never gave up on me. And that is something that is impossible to quantify, nearly impossible to put into words.