Page 11 - DLNdec2018-1039

To help Mark to fill in the pages of the DLN, I would like
to tell you about some of the situations I had with
some of my friends in our club. I joined the club in
December 1954. At the time, Brian Saxton was the membership secretary
so he will tell you that I joined in 1955, Back then, you had to be on trial for
two months. He is still the same with records, bless him.

I first started my cycling hobby by first meeting up with the Kingston
Wheelers and on my first club run I was dropped off the back after two miles
and no one came back for me. I then saw an advert in the Cycling mag which
said “ Join a mans club. (it was all male at the time). I telephoned the number
given and was told by a guy called Peter to meet him outside of the
gentleman’s toilet at Camberwell Green on the following Thursday at 8pm.
He then asked if I realized that this was an all male club! I thought ‘What am
I letting my self in for?’

It was the best thing I ever did. I made so many friends who I still know now.
I have also lost a few. I was taken down to the Nelson Institute just off the
Old Kent Road by Peter who introduced me to a few members. One was Charlie
Carlton. Charlie was an ex army paratrooper and he has broken every bone in
his body. He told me that the normal format would be with the lads racing
on Sunday mornings and then meeting up in the afternoon, having a meal
and then going to the pictures. This we did but without fail we would fall asleep
in the pictures.

If we did not go to the pictures we would meet up at the Swan pub in Stockwell
with Charlie, Geoff Sinnett, Harry Thomas, Len Danby, and Johnny Barber to
mention a few. We had a few beers or as Charlie would call it - Lunatics Broth..

Charlie would say ‘You have got to get the miles in’ and so he would enter me
for all the long distance events. In June 1955 he entered me for the Balham
second class 100 on the Bath Road. I won the event with a 4.39.49. That

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