"In a break from the June monsoons and floods, the sun shone brightly in Bournemouth as the members and guests gathered for the annual WSRA Southern lunch at town's The Connaught Hotel.

Suberbly organized by Merv & Sheila Hannam, over 50 hungry Speedway folk sat down for a great lunch and plenty of Speedway talk and, as the saying goes,.......A grand time was had by all.

Being the SOUTHERN Lunch, we had a good selection of riders from "The Deep South" as opposed to the rest of the country although a few of us had managed to fight our way past the holiday caravans and make our way down  to sunny Bournemouth.

Poole legends, Ken Middleditch and Brian "Nipper" Crutcher were there, looking as fit and sprightly as ever. These guys look as if they could swing their legs over a 500cc Speedway machine and slide around the Wimbourne Road home of the Pirates track tomorrow and still not break sweat. Ken still keeps his throttle hand in action by riding his collection of vintage motorcycles around the lanes of Sturminster Marshall, usually in company with fellow veteran (bike and rider!), Colin Goody. You just cannot keep a good motorcyclist down.

Talking of fit & healthy, most of the ex-riders present looked remarkably well, it must be the result of breathing in all those Castrol 'R' fumes in their racing days, it seems to have "oiled" their joints.

The Flying Williams Brothers (there's that Circus act again), Ian & Fred, are another pair who defy Old Father Time  and look younger than some of the present day riders!  Ian is looking forward to flying out to Australia for the Australian VSRA Dinner in November, so he will miss our British winter. Our own WSRA will be well represented at the Aussie dinner in Sydney, as former VSRA Presidents, Jack Geran and  Scotland's Jimmy Tannock are making the trip Down Under and Darrell Mason is also heading there from his home in Teneriffe. I think that Jack is going along as Jimmy's interpreter, but he may have a difficult job as even I, a fellow Glaswegian, can struggle to understand Jimmy sometimes! Perhaps we should have our next WSRA Dinner Dance and AGM in Australia instead of wet and windy Britain?

Wee Norman Strachan was at the lunch along with Swindon's, Wee Georgie White, what a pairing they would have been is they had ridden in the same team at the same time.

Maury Mattingly, famous for his Mattingley frames and his "Flicker" visor and equally famous for being flown from his Southampton home to his "home" meetings at Glasgow's White City Stadium when he was captain of Scotland's Glasgow Tigers in the '60s. Unlike today, when the Grand Prix riders are jetting between Britain, Poland, Sweden, Germany, etc., this was in the days when no-one flew to races within the UK. Poor Chris Julian had to drive from his home in Cornwall to Glasgow when he rode for the Tigers, often taking 3 or 4 days for the trip, whilst Maury just hopped onto a plane and arrived in Scotland refreshed and ready to race.

The ex-"Oxford Mafia" of Bernard Crapper, John Payne, Glyn Shailes and John Tremlin, shared a table with Maury, Cecil Bailey and former Southampton star, Brian Hanham whilst former Birmingham favourite, George Major came across from the Isle of Wight to join the fun. George was due to don his famous yellow leathers (if they fitted) and have a match race at Birmingham against another ex-Brummie favourite, Alan Grahame, so we wished him luck.

A noticeable absentee from the lunch was our Southern correspondent, Cyril J Hart. Cyril has been a  stalwart at these events and his reports on the southern tracks for Speedway Star and many other publications, but as he is now in a nursing home in Bournemouth, he was unable to attend. It was fitting that Brian Crutcher had been able to pop in to see Cyril and he passed on the Association's best wishes, especially as Cyril J. had reported on much of Brian's early career at Poole.

Another who was unable to attend was former Oxford & West Ham star, Pat Clarke, but his wife, Janet had enjoyed last year's dinner so much that she came along with Pat's brother, Colin.

As usual, Merv & Sheila had organised some great prizes for the raffle which helped our WSRA funds. There were so many prizes that it was almost like an old Communist-style raffle,....................Everyone won a prize!
George Major won a bottle of wine then later on he won the glasses to go with it.

Former referee, Mike Barnes didn't bring along his old Speedway movies this time, but the raffle went on so long that we may have outstayed our welcome at the hotel as our "lunch" had strayed on to about 5pm!

 Other WSRA members who made the trip to the Southern Lunch included Reg Duval, Ken Vale, ex-Wembley Lion, Des Lukehurst, Ron Walton, Jack Pope, Dave Moxham, Ron Swaine, Derek Poluton plus wives and guests, and from the comments overheard as everyone filed out into the car park to make their respective ways home, everyone had a great time with the usual WSRA motto at these events,........"Good Food, Good Wine, Good Company".

Here's to our next WSRA Get-Together, check out your copy of "Opposite.Lock" and try to join us next time.

 

Bert Harkins