Willie was camera-mad. His first camera was a small projector. He hung a sheet in the living-room and we all sat on the floor watching black-and-white Mickey Mouse cartoons.

His next camera was a small Pentax 35mm. He was always after me with that camera. He took pictures of me washing socks, cooking dinner, watching television, and many with my hand covering my face. Everywhere I went, there was Willie with that camera. I used to try to chase him away.

Seems like all he done was take my photo. He developed his film here at night. When we were all in bed and the house was dark, he stayed up developing all those photos.

He also loved taking pictures of his sister Kathleen's daughter, Elaine. He snapped her photo when she was a baby bouncing in her chair and as she toddled up the footpath and through the gate. Every time he took her picture, he said: 'She's powerful!'

His first film was of Elaine. We were all sitting here on a Sunday night and here comes Willie with a light and his movie camera. We were all sitting around Elaine as she played in her wee bouncer and he filmed us playing with her. While the rest of the family sometimes grew weary of his cameras, the wee one never tired of her uncle Willie taking pictures.

When he got his first movie camera, he began filming all the civil rights marches. He would get in as close as he could to take in whatever was going on. He filmed the funerals, including the funeral of Sammy Devenney who was beaten to death by the RUC. He filmed the baton charges of the RUC. When they came at him, he didn't move. He stayed on filming. His brothers had to pull him out of the way. He wanted to stay to the last second. He'd be getting a battering to get all the action.
When Willie left for the march (on Bloody Sunday], he had his movie camera over his shoulder. I said to Mary (daughter], they'll think our Willie's a reporter today, nothing will happen to him. It was only a march, you know, for civil rights. But that was the next of it then, you know.

Willie saw two of his sisters on the way to the march. He pretended to film them as they mugged for the camera and then he sent them home. He tucked his camera under his coat to protect it when the army opened fire. But it was him who needed protecting. The army murdered him as he took cover, crawling by a low wall, crouching in the grass. A woman who saw him just before he was shot said he looked absolutely terrified.

There was a Dr McClean that was with Willie for the last. He went over to him and Willie said: 'Doctor, am I going to get better?' Dr McClean says: 'I told that fella a wee white lie, I said: The ambulance is coming now and they'll take you to Altnagelvin and you'll be all right." It's wile lonely when you're dying, so I held his hand until he died.'

The army shot him in the back and killed him. He was just there to film the march and they shot him.

Willie used to meet Elizabeth (his girlfriend] at the Guildhall, and the day that it happened she was standing waiting on him. We had to go down and tell her. She waited six years for him to be ready to marry.
But they didn't get there. There's honour in being a widow.

It must be hard to be the girlfriend of a murder victim. It's easy for people to disregard the depth of the relationship when you are just 'the girlfriend'. But, to us, she was his fiancée and, so, part of our family. He loved her so much. We were so happy for her when she found love again, married, and had a family.

Kathleen was in Puerto Rico when Willie died. She arrived in Derry the day after the funeral. They held Willie's body back at the chapel and buried him the next day. I thought I was going to the cemetery the day Willie was buried. But that big car pulled up out there for me and I said, 'I think I am going to his wedding with the like of this car.' I couldn't go. I used to go up on Cemetery Sunday, but it's a long time since I've been up there. I won't go near it.

We never talked about Willie after he was shot. There were six sons left, and we were afraid they would have got into bother with a soldier or something you know, so we never talked about Willie. But one night they were all sitting, you see, after Willie died, and the father says to them: 'Are any of you in anything?' He meant the IRA. And they said no. He said: 'Well, keep it like that, for one sore heart's enough; we don't want any more.'