Second Lieutenant William Keightley EVERS (1937)

4th Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery
Born 1911 or 1912
Killed in action 22 September 1940, aged 28
Buried at El Alamein War Cemetery, Egypt.

William Evers was the son of The Revd William Henry Evers, and Marion, née Keightley, of Cowley, Oxford.

He came to Merton as a Harmsworth Senior Scholar, having been educated at Kingswood School and taken a first in History from Oriel in 1935.

He was made Second Lieutenant on 10 May 1939, having served in the Oxford University Contingent of the Officers’ Training Corps.

The Canadian poet George Whalley wrote “W.K.E.” in his memory:

It is his hands that I remember:
scholarly hands with the firm
delicacy of a musician’s.
When he held a book
his fingers savoured the texture
of paper and binding.
It seemed as though he knew
by touch the mysterious
artistry of the letter
perfectly formed, the perfect
balance of a page;
and when you watched his strong
sensitive fingers you shared
the depth of his delight.

You cannot imagine hands
so spiritual and gentle
turned to the uses of war.
It is not to be wondered at
that in the first autumn
before the bitter fighting
startled the desert solitude
a random bomb killed him.