Willie Reid

Willie has been leading free guided historical walks round High Wycombe since 2016. He is a trustee of High Wycombe Society.

Born in Meikleour in Perthshire in Scotland on 2 March 1949. Lived for my first 22 years in Glenfarg in Perthshire where in 1961 I won the Dux Medal at Arngask Primary School. My secondary school education was at Perth Academy from 1961-67 where I finished with 9 ‘O’ levels and 3 Highers - maths, history and economics. During these years I was the message boy on the delivery bike at the local grocers taking orders to households in and around the village. I also played many sports including football, badminton, tennis, bowls, curling and cycled a lot. 

In 1967 I joined the Royal Bank of Scotland in Perth and started to study for the banking exams. In 1971 I finished runner-up in the whole of Scotland for the Bilsland Prize in the Scottish banking exams. For my efforts the bank sent me to London for 5 years! There I worked in the foreign department and then the dealing room for the next 10 years. I continued to play football, tennis and badminton and also attended lessons in Scottish country dancing. In 1980 I married Janet and we have three children. In 1981 I moved to Chemical Bank, a US bank based in London, and continued as a foreign exchange dealer. Shortly afterwards we moved from Northolt to Holmer Green. 

I took voluntary redundancy in 1996 and started to take an interest in Jubilee 2000, a charity set up in 1994 with the aim of celebrating the millennium by asking creditors to cancel the debts of the world’s poorest countries. I initially became treasurer and then a trustee. Our ambitious project soon became a bandwagon as charities, church leaders, pop groups and many ordinary people joined our crusade. We instigated a petition in 7 languages asking people from all over the world to sign. In the end we got 19.6 million people to sign from 165 countries making it the largest international petition ever. And of course someone had to count all these signatures - that person was me. When Jubilee 2000 came to an end in December 2000 we had extracted from the international creditors promises to write-off US$110 bn of the debts of the world’s poorest countries. In the words of Martin Wolf of the Financial Times ‘Jubilee 2000 had become the world’s most effective single initiative. Some ordinary idea, some extraordinary people!’

In 2001 I decided to start up my own website - www.just1world.org - with the aim of looking to discover why the nations of sub-Saharan Africa trail so far behind most of the rest of the world in terms of development before going on to offer suggestions about how to encourage lasting and constructive change there. This can be a controversial subject but now in its 20th year some 90 people, on average, visit the website every day.

In 2016 after going on a historical walk round Sydney in Australia I wondered if there was any potential in doing historical walks round High Wycombe. To my surprise I found that Wycombe has an amazing history to tell and by asking local people I was able to add to the story. The walks are now in their 9th year and in that time I have taken many walkers, school kids, some mayors and councillors and even dogs along with 175 virtual walkers round the town raising £thousands for Street Kids Direct, a charity dealing with kids living on the streets in Guatemala City in Guatemala in central America. 

Willie is also a trustee of High Wycombe Society.