ONE of Bill Lees’ earliest memories is lying in a hospital bed in Edinburgh during a bombing raid by German aircraft on three British ships under the Forth Rail Bridge.

It was October 16, 1939, the war was barely six weeks old and Bill, just turned four, was recovering after delicate surgery to remove a bone from behind his ear.

It was the symptom of an illness which left its mark on the young Souter.

“I was much weaker than the other kids which is probably why I was never any good at sports – I just couldn’t keep up,” explained Bill – the latest recipient of a Golden Ticket to ride on one of the Border Railway’s inaugural trains on September 5.

When it invited nominations, Scottish Borders Council stressed the need for candidates to have a strong link to the railway past or present, to have carried out “excellent work” in their community, to have done something special to overcome personal challenges or to be considered “an unsung local hero”.

Perhaps uniquely, Bill Lees, now in his 81st year and arguably best known for his many years as principal teacher of art at Galashiels Academy, ticks all these boxes.

His railway credentials, for instance, could hardly be more impressive.

His grandfather William was an engine driver on the North British Railway based at Penicuik while his uncle Archie was a signalman at Innerwick near Dunbar.

Bill’s own father, also Archie, began his railway career as a porter before becoming a signalman at Maxton and then in Selkirk. When passenger services between Selkirk and Galashiels ceased in 1951, dad Archie completed his service as a guard on the Waverley Line.

Bill Lees was born at Viewfield Nursing Home in Selkirk, the only child of Archie and Elizabeth (nee MacLellan) who had been a domestic servant in Penicuik before getting married.

Brought up in Shawburn Road, he was grateful his father ensured that, despite physical weakness, his son had privileged access to the hallowed and alluring precincts of the town’s station.

“I think I spent most of my childhood there and the fascination and excitement has never left me,” said Bill. “My father would, as a treat, let me work the signals and on one occasion I was allowed to 'drive’ a steam powered rail car – but only for a few yards.

“Because of my father, we had free travel on the train. We went everywhere on it and, as a boy, my favourite destination was the coast. That is where my love of painting and drawing boats and ships came from.” Bill Lees cannot remember having any particular talent for art when at Knowepark Primary.

“In fact, when I was asked to select my favourite pattern from a wallpaper sample book, my primary teacher told me I had 'no taste’,” he recalled.

But things changed at Selkirk High where, under the tutelage and encouragement of art teachers Jimmy Henderson and then John McNairn, he flourished, earning a place at the prestigious Edinburgh College of Art where his lecturers included the acclaimed Scots landscape artists William Gillies and William MacTaggart.

Bill graduated four years later with a Drawing and Painting Diploma before completing a two-year teacher training course at Moray House.

In 1958, aged 23, he was taken on as a visiting art teacher covering Berwickshire’s primary schools and two years later he successfully applied for the job as an art teacher at Galashiels Academy.

The following year, in 1962, he married Alison Pringle who worked in Selkirkshire County Council’s welfare office in Gala Park, Galashiels.

The couple have three children – Donald, a motor mechanic in Galashiels; Bruce, a solicitor in Kelso; and Shona Lenaghan, who lives at Lindean and is herself an accomplished artist, having followed her father to Edinburgh College of Art.

Shona, who has three children – Chiara, Kane and Alexander – is also now principal teacher of art at Kelso High.

Bill took over that role at the Academy in 1975, replacing the legendary artist/intellectual Neil Foggie.

“I liked teaching principally because I liked people,” reflected Bill who, as a self-taught accordionist, helped run the school’s very own country dance band.

But health problems came back to haunt Bill when he suffered a cardiac arrest in 1992, forcing his premature retirement the following year, aged 58.

“In a strange way and looking back, that was really the start of a new and exciting life, without the pressures of teaching,” said Bill.

He was nominated for the Golden Ticket by grateful colleagues in the Chaplaincy at the Borders General Hospital where he is a volunteer counsellor.

After retiring, Bill also became closely involved with activities at the Focus Ability Centre in Galashiels, running numerous adult and children’s after-school art classes.

He has also offered voluntary tuition in weaving to disabled people and one of his abiding passions is producing cloth on a hand loom which has pride of place in the workshop of the home he shares with Alison at Craigpark Gardens.

More than two decades after leaving the Academy, Bill Lees is still in great demand for his art – from fulfilling painting and book illustration commissions to crafting beautiful engraved crystal items for friends and family.

Another of his hobbies is sketching his many friends and fellow instrumentalists among the local musical fraternity and he still performs with his box at the weekly Scottish Country Dance sessions at St Paul’s Church.

Bill Lees has many mementos of a full and fulfilled life.

These include one of the last passenger train tickets between Selkirk and Galashiels from 1951 and a letter from the owners of the Waverley paddle steamer, recording their grateful thanks to Bill for hand painting all the destination signs aboard the world famous vessel.

But he admits that the letter, informing him of his Golden Ticket award, trumps everything else.

“I feel really quite emotional about this,” he said. “The railway should never have closed in the first place and, like many other people, I never thought it would come back.

“It will be the thrill to beat all thrills to be on that train again.”