Noel Radford learned in 22 Kids And Counting that Clive had died, and the news pushed the family toward the long-delayed burial of his mother’s ashes. He said he and Ian had waited six years after their mother died, holding off out of respect for Clive while the legal and personal details sat unresolved.
Why the will changed
Amanda told Noel and Ian that their mother’s will “isn't worth the paper it's written on” and that Clive changed his own will after she died. Her explanation was blunt: “Because he wants to ensure that the entirety of the joint estates goes to his family and you're cut out.”
That left Noel and Ian facing a split between what they expected and what the paperwork showed. Their mother’s share of the family home had sat inside a joint estate, so once Clive altered his will, the route they thought would protect her wishes no longer worked the way they had assumed.
Clive’s cleaner gets the house
Noel later obtained a copy of Clive’s will and found that the house had gone to Clive’s cleaner. Clive also gave away his mother’s accordion, and Noel reacted with anger: “That wasn't for him to decide. He should have given it to us. I can't describe how much I hate this man now.”
Noel was equally direct about the wider fallout. “I'm very shocked about the will. We always thought Clive was a really honourable, well-respected, nice guy, which to us he was. So to find out that both myself and my brother have been taken out of the will — I guess that's a real big shock.”
Noel and Ian’s next move
Noel said he wrote to Clive’s cleaner because “What's happened with her will isn't what my mum wanted. I've got to step up for my mum and get what she wanted. I feel very bitter. What's the point of her even making a will if somebody else can just change it all?”
He also accepted he was unlikely to make any further progress through legal channels. That leaves the family with the practical part of the story now attached to grief rather than process: burying their mother after six years, and closing out a dispute that has already run through the will, the house and the belongings she left behind.
