Jubilee they found a nice place at 21 Portman Square, London, and it was ready to be opened as a conference centre.
21 Portman Square was a very nice building, but there was some controversy, because Ron Hewitson, our Treasurer at the time, was very anti, and so were a few others. Ron, who was the manager of Lloyds Bank, had taken the place of Francis Turner as Treasurer. Despite this opposition, they all contributed and the place was opened on Sunday afternoon by the Rotary International President.
It was a lovely old building with a
magnificent lounge and you could get full meals there. It was a very good idea, but many Rotarians never even went there.
I went, however, and made quite a bit of use of it over the next few years. I used to go up to town and leave the car in Portman Square, have a meal and go to the theatre. At one time we went every few months and, on one occasion in 1959, we took our car to Marylebone Station, left it there, had our meal in the Rotary House of Friendship and went on the train up to Scotland. Although the House was not residential, you could always get a Club meeting there any day of the week. Its main failure was that there was no really big hall in which to have large meetings. Actually, Jean and I knew the manager; she was a friend of Jean from Emerson Park and we had been to her wedding. Sadly, the House of Fellowship was not a financial success and, after about 7 or 8 years, it was wound up. Of course, they sold the lease and did not lose any money over it, so the Club got its money back. After that, Ron Hewitson suggested that we support the Lifeboats, so we put the money into a fund to buy a lifeboat.
Austerity Meals – For or Against?
Another suggestion Ron Hewitson made a year before was for the Rotary to have an austerity meal once a week instead of having sandwiches. We put a £1 in and the money went to charity. Ron’s idea was for RIBI to take up the lifeboat fund. We made a tremendous amount of money for the charity, but it caused an endless amount of argument in the Club, and during my year I managed to shelve the idea and leave it to somebody who was more in favour of it. A lot of the members were very against my views on this, but I did not care
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