Bill Woods brought joy to others, playing the piano until he was 103 years old
Bill Woods’s appearance on ABC TV’s The Piano is special for many reasons. Not only does it represent his life-long love of playing piano, but it’s a treasured memory of Bill, who sadly passed away, aged 103, shortly before the show went to air.
His daughter, Sue Pope, recalls the day late last year she and Bill arrived at Central Station to be greeted by The Piano host, Amanda Keller. Bill and his fellow pianists had gone onto the show purely to bring music to passersby in public locations. “He was incredibly nervous,” Sue, a Bayview resident, says. “But then, when he started to play, he went into the zone. It was just incredible watching him.”
As Bill played his favourite tune for the cameras, Love is Here to Stay by Gershwin, he had no idea that American jazz singer Harry Connick Jr and concert pianist Andrea Lam were observing him. “That is old-school time right there – you could set your watch to that,” Harry commented on the episode as he listened to Bill’s playing. “What a brilliant man.”
Bill and Sue left shortly after Bill played and returned to the aged care facility in Warriewood where he was living, missing out on the chance to meet Harry and Andrea on the show. Regardless, Sue says her father was ‘blown away’ by how caring the crew were. “He was very humble,” Sue recalls. “He kept on saying ‘I’m 103, I might make mistakes, why do they want to film me?’”
Bill was taught piano by his own father as a child. Sue says her dad played when he was a school border at Shore; he played the organ at Sydney University while completing his medical degree, later becoming the director of the radiotherapy department at Royal North Shore Hospital, also known as radiation therapy; and he played each evening as Sue’s mother, Joan, prepared dinner for the family of six.
Joan passed away in 2010, and in his later years Bill played every afternoon at 4pm at the aged care facility, with residents gathered around for a song. “He would always finish with Mum’s favourite song (Love is Here to Stay) in her honour,” Sue says of the Gershwin classic.
Bill played piano up until two weeks before passing away in March this year, taking a small keyboard to bed when he couldn’t make it to the piano.
When the episode of The Piano featuring her father aired, Sue admits to watching it in tears, but has been comforted by lovely messages from the public.
“If I didn’t have the piano it would be so difficult to really, to exist,” Bill said on the show. “Playing the piano, I have something to hold on to.”
The Piano is showing on ABC iview.