At the general meeting in August, two nominations were received for the vacant position of
captain. John Eddershaw C299 and Peter Worth C491. As John Eddershaw had a number of commitments due to his Presidency of the R.W.A. he declined the nomination in favour of Peter Worth who also took on the additional role of assistant secretary. Another election was that of Charlie Megnin C288 as Vice-President. The secretary outlined the final details of the Centurions 75th anniversary dinner, a project Hew Neilson had been working on at the time of his death. The dinner which was held at the Irish centre, Camden Sq., London on September 13th was a great success and by a happy chance was attended by exactly 100 Centurions and guests. The event was slightly marred by the announcement of the death in Australia of Fred Redman C163. Fred was one of the Centurion Vice-Presidents and a co- founder of the Australian Centurions. The week after the dinner, a party of 9 walkers and attendants were to be found at the Roubaix 28 hour race. All 9 walkers successfully completed the event with some very good performances, none more so than Edmund Shillabeer C591 who finished equal second with a fraction under 240km. The next best performance of 226.5 km was by Paddy Dowling who had started going to this race in 1975. A week after the race this glutton for punishment was at Lands End where he proceeded to walk to John O’Groats, beating the existing record for this journey by 11 hours. The 1987 race at Ewhurst on 26th June was different to the previous editions in two ways. Firstly, the R.W.A. had officially designated it as the National Long Distance Championship, secondly and perhaps more important was the fact that Surrey Walking Club had finally relented and allowed women to enter the race. 3 ladies were numbered among the 54 starters and all three were successful, one of them being Ann Mansveld, who at 61 years of age became the senior lady Centurion. She walked the race with her husband Willem C411 who had qualified 20 years earlier in the last Brighton and back. In total 38 completed the race, 11 of them for the first time. Dave Boxall C464 and Louis Oostvogels C521 both completed for the 10th time. The winner in 17 hours 55 minutes 10 seconds was John Cannell C388 but his win was not without problems. Apart from having to contend with the 4 men who finished within half an hour of him, he went straight past the dogleg on one lap during the night, the referee allowed him to do the dogleg twice next time round in order to make up the distance. The A.G.M. was held in September at Woodford Green, following their 1 hour track races.
It was chaired by Tom Richardson, C100 and would prove to be his last Centurion function, his death was reported in October. The secretary reported that the new handbook (ninth edition) would be available early in the New Year. 177 new Centurions had qualified since the last edition, an increase of more than 25%. He also drew attention to the anomaly of the election of Vice-Presidents. In 1973 the office of Vice-President had been abolished in favour of annual elections. During that 14 year period there were many occasions when no nominations were received and therefore the Centurions would not have a Vice-President. The meeting agreed to restore the office of Life Vice-President and reinstate all those that had been deleted from the list. In his Christmas letter the captain, Peter Worth C491 revealed that he had been given a scrapbook which had been kept by Tommy French C61, covering a period from 1910-1952. The scrapbook which has been extremely useful in the compilation of this handbook is now a part of Centurion archives. The 1988 race was held on 29th-30th July on the usual Leicester circuit, despite concern for the safety of walkers on the outward and return sections from the town centre. 75 started the race, most of them regular protagonists with a strong Dutch contingent and a good number of first timers. The race became a titanic battle between the two previous years winners and was reminiscent of the great contest between Hew Neilson C145 and Vic Stone C202 in the 1955 Brighton and Back. The winner was Richard Brown C760 in the fourth fastest recorded time only 35 seconds outside the magical 17 hour barrier. John Cannell C388 had to settle for second place, less than 10 minutes behind. In total 47 completed the race. 19 were first
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