Another teak seat is at St. George’s Hospital, where we had quite a connection through Tom Shuttleworth. Tom became the first Chairman of the League of Friends at St. George’s. He was very active and did great work until he died a few years later. I am not very good on dates, so I am hazy about exactly when this was.


The Tourcoing Link


It was suggested in a letter that we received from the District that we should contact Clubs abroad. A new Club had been formed in France and it was suggested that the “youngsters” among us approach them. We discussed this idea and, as Tom Shuttleworth was in France at that time, we asked him to contact them. Tom was our optician in the Club. He did as we asked, and he also made contact with a German Club. Tom duly reported that the new French Club – Tourcoing, near Lille - would like to establish a link with us, and the President of the Club wrote to me, suggesting that we start with an essay competition for the youngsters of our Club. The idea was to get them to write something about our town, and this they did. The outcome was that we arranged for my son Ian and two friends to go over the following summer. This took place, and Ian went over to Mons.


Marcel Dupont, the French Club’s President, had two sons, one about Ian’s age, about 17. Bill Fields, who was in our Club for many years, and his two daughters went with Ian to Dupont’s country house. It was a magnificent house. His son Dominique got on well with Ian, but the two girls became homesick and came home quickly. Dominique, or ‘coolly’ as we called him, was invited to come to us the next year. This was really our first contact with Tourcoing.


Christmas Parties and Dinners


For the Golden Anniversary, the Club arranged to have a tour of the Houses of Parliament and our MP kindly arranged that. We also arranged for the people on their first visit to us to go to the Houses of Parliament. I have not mentioned that we always had Christmas parties and in those days they were real Christmas parties. We all had youngsters in their early teens. They were always held in the Bell, with the usual party games. Over the years, as we all became older, the party occasion changed to a dinner, as it is now.


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