Early Years
Harper was the son of William Harper Sr., a blacksmith, and Christina Brown. Differing sources claim he was born in either Tarbrax, Lanarkshire or Winchburgh, West Lothian. He initially followed his father into the blacksmith trade while also playing football for several junior teams. During the First World War he enlisted in the British Army and served with the 5th Brigade of the Scots Guards on the Western Front. Harper, an all-round sportsman, was brigade heavyweight boxing champion and captain of the Guards rugby union team when they won a brigade championship.
Read more about this topic: Bill Harper
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“Parents ... are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don’t fulfil the promise of their early years.”
—Anthony Powell (b. 1905)
“Love is the hardest thing in the world to write about. So simple. You’ve got to catch it through details, like the early morning sunlight hitting the gray tin of the rain spout in front of her house. The ringing of a telephone that sounds like Beethoven’s “Pastoral.” A letter scribbled on her office stationery that you carry around in your pocket because it smells of all the lilacs in Ohio.”
—Billy Wilder (b. 1906)
“There is no lonelier man in death, except the suicide, than that man who has lived many years with a good wife and then outlived her. If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)