Annual Report 2012

39 members attended the event and enjoyed a light hearted meeting and a splendid lunch.

Our Chairman, Roger Francis gave a warm welcome to all and expressed the belief that the activities of the Club had made a valuable contribution to the lives and well-being of our members.

Turning to the Club membership, Roger reported that the present membership totalled 386, of whom 193 were active members on whom we were able to claim a per capita allowance. Despite recruitment difficulties, our numbers are standing up well to the test of time, and our active membership has actually increased over the last two years. As well as those members who supported the club activities, there was also a nucleus that formed the 'golfing club'. Roger also pointed out that the monthly coffee morning was free of charge and expressed the wish that more members would support that also.

Turning finally to the committee, Roger thanks the committee members, Buster, Rosemary and Phyllis for their support, and wished Phyllis well as a 'back bencher', having retired from the committee. His thanks also to Graham as Vice Chairman, Tony as Welfare Officer, Don and Norma for their excellent programme of social events, Don also in his capacity as Treasurer and website manager, and Jean as Secretary. He proposed a vote of thanks to the committee which was warmly applauded.

The committee was re-elected en-bloc and the accounts were adopted, with thanks to Robin Frost who had seamlessly taken over the reins of our auditor the previous year.

There was a short sharp shower as 48 members and their guests boarded the coach at Withdean for the trip up to London for our visit to the Bank of England Museum and Barclays Head Office at Churchill Place in Canary Wharf.

The trip was uneventful and we had a good view of the nearly completed Shard London Bridge building that when completed in May will be the tallest building in Europe at 310 metres (1,020 ft).

We arrived at the Bank of England in good time to have a quick browse around part of the museum before going into a presentation and introductory talk from a very pleasant and knowledgeable young lady called Ida Reeve. She gave us a brief outline of the history of the Bank of England from its foundation by Royal Charter in 1694 to its role today as the nation's central bank.

This famous cartoon by James Gillray published in 1797 is believed to be the origin of the Bank of England's nickname of the 'Old Lady'. The cartoon is a satire on the suspension of gold payments by the Bank of England. Prime minister William Pitt was forced to implement the issue of paper money when the Bank announced a gold shortage, due to loans it had made to finance the war with France.

After the presentation, we had ample time to browse around the remainder of the museum and that included the opportunity to try and lift a real gold bar, which although only just bigger in size than a house brick, weighed in at 12.5 kg (27 lbs) and had a staggering value of £411,715.

We jumped back on the coach for the 30 minute ride across the City to Docklands and to Barclays Head Office in Churchill Place. We were greeted by very polite doormen and then by our host for the afternoon, David Scoones. After the customary and necessary security checks, we made our way to a second floor reception room and were supplied with a very welcome cup of tea or coffee and biscuits. We then spilt into smaller groups and were taken on a tour of the building with the highlight being the time spent on the 30th floor that afforded superb views across the City including good views of the Olympic site, the O2 Arena and the River Thames.

Although officially no photographs should be taken in the building, I did get permission to take a few photographs of the views and these are shown below. Many of our members took the opportunity to have a chat with our host and his team of helpers. David Scoones, who must be 6' 8", is from New York and gave us an insight into what it was like to work in such a building.

After a couple of hours, it was back to the coach and back to Brighton after a very interesting day.

Incidentally if you look closely at the top left hand photo you may be able to see a reflection of me!!!

We were scheduled to play our spring meeting at Pyecombe Golf Club on Monday 23rd April, but the weather was that bad that we had little choice other than to postpone the meeting until a later date.

We have now moved on to the 14th May and 20 players arrive at Pyecombe to be greeted by coffee and bacon rolls and.....rain.

With tee-off times from 1pm onwards, the rain was fairly light and we all set off with hopes of a reasonable points score and an enjoyable round. Unfortunately, the rain got progressively heavier, the points got progressively lower and a number of players chose the warmth and dryness of the clubhouse to spend the rest of the afternoon in comfortable surroundings!!

In spite of the conditions some good golf was played and the 'nearest the pin' awards went to Ted Scale, Richard Box and John Tucknott. See below:

The competition was keen, albeit a bit damp and some very reasonable scores were achieved given the conditions. After close scrutiny by the judges, the winner was declared as David Pitts, on his Pensioners Club Golf Society debut and he was presented with the R T Box Cup, also making it's debut, by Richard Box. Second was Richard and third was Graham Clark.

The R.T. Box Cup was presented to the Society by Richard Box in memory of this late father and he was delighted to present it to David who he had played golf with for too many years to remember!! In fact it was only on count-back that David had won the trophy as he had finished level on points with Richard, so but for one shot, Richard could have been awarding his own trophy to himself!.

It was quite chilly and showery as 31 members boarded the coach for the 60 minute journey to Uppark House, near Petersfield, but the sun came out several times on the trip and made some of the scenery quite spectacular with the recent rain making the trees and fields appear greener than ever. The fields of bright yellow rape seed added to the landscape to make the trip very enjoyable.

We were greeted at Uppark House by a very pleasant lady by the name of Ann De Silva, who made us feel most welcome.

The house was due to open at 12.30pm so we had enough time to pop into the restaurant for a welcome cup of tea and a snack before looking round the house and gardens.

The house was built in 1690 by Ford Grey, Earl of Tankerville. In 1747, the estate was bought by Sir Matthew Fetherstonhaugh and it has remained in that family up to the present day. On the 30th August 1989, there was fire at the house and all of the families possessions on the upper floors were destroyed, but most of the ground floor and basement survived thanks to the staff and fire service grabbing all the artefacts they could and carrying them to safety.

The following 6 years were spend painstakingly restoring the house to its original glory and although it still bears the scars from the fire, the collections of 18th century furniture, ornamental ceilings and fabrics are amazing. It took restorers over 5 years just to restore the plaster ceiling in The Saloon and because of the difficulty in working on the ceiling by hand, the senior craftsmen had to train younger and more agile apprentices to carry out the work, which involved using as much of the old ceiling that had fallen down in the fire as possible. The training that these people received also came into good use later following the fires at Windsor Castle and Hampton Court.

As you can see from these photos the sun did come out from time to time to make this a very enjoyable visit.

We the got back on the coach for the short journey to the Chidham Village Hall, where we were warmly welcomed by the ladies from the Chidham Women's Institute, who supplied the most gorgeous cream tea you have ever seen. Loads of tea or coffee and sandwiches, scones and enough cream cakes to feed an army.

Our Vice Chairman, Graham Clark thanked Ann Read and her team of helpers for supplying such a wonderful tea and giving us such a warm welcome. The photos above show our members enjoying their tea and also the ladies of the Chidham W.I. in their very fetching pinnies!!

It was a typical English summers day when we left Hove to make our way to Chatham for the visit to the historic dockyard and museum. It was cold and wet and not very nice following days of rain and localised flooding.

33 members and their guests spent most of the journey looking out of rain splattered windows and it was still raining when we arrived at Chatham, so we made our way straight to the restaurant for a welcomed cup of tea or coffee and some biscuits. We were due to walk round the dockyard with two guides, but changed to a coach tour around the site with a very knowledgeable and cheerful lady called Rose. She told us that the Royal Dockyards provided the Royal Navy with the shore support facilities it required to build, repair and maintain the fleet. The first recorded use of Chatham as a dockyard was back in 1547. By the mid-18th Century the Royal Yards had developed into one of the largest industrial organisations in the world with complex facilities supporting thousands of skilled workers in a wide number of trades. Probably the most famous ship to have been built at Chatham is Nelsons' Flagship, the HMS Victory that was built in 1765 having taken 6 years to build.

After the guided tour, we returned to the restaurant for an excellent fish and chips lunch followed by apple pie and cream. Members then went to the areas or exhibits that most interested them. Most headed for the three historic warships, the HMS Gannet, a Victorian Naval Sloop powered by steam and sail, HM Submarine Ocelot, an 'O' class electric/diesel submarine and HMS Cavalier a second world war destroyer.

Our own Chairman, Roger Francis spent some nostalgic moments visiting HMS Cavalier which was exactly the same design as the destroyer (HMS Tumult) he served in on National Service in 1955, and incredibly identical in detail. So much so that he was able to show Ruth the mess deck where he lived for 14 months and demonstrate the crowded, uncomfortable conditions that they enjoyed, hammocks and all. Now she believes him!

Later in the afternoon we all boarded the Kingswear Castle Paddle Steamer for a 90 minute cruise up the Medway Estuary. Luckily the rain had eased by then and we able to enjoy cruise, which incidentally was exactly 10 years to the day after the Club were last on this vessel following a visit to Rochester on 12th June 2002.

There was so much to see and we all agreed that we could have spent two days there and still not seen all of the exhibits and museums.

As always, photos tell a better story, so here are some pictures taken during the visit:

Members, with Rose our guide in front of 'Rodney' Exhibition Model of Chatham Dockyard

A tractor tramway locomotive built in 1895 at Rochester The Kingswear Castle Paddle Steamer

At last the sun has decided to pay us a visit and it was a lovely day when 63 members and their guests made the short journey to Albourne, near Henfield for our annual mid summer lunch at Wickwoods Country Club.

There was a glass of Pimms waiting as members arrived and soon the outside tables were buzzing with conversations as colleagues caught up on the latest news whilst soaking up the sunshine in what has been one of the wettest summers on record.

Lunch was served with a wonderful array of meats, quiches and salad, followed by a selection of mouth-watering desserts.

After lunch we were treated to a talk from Jean Benniston, who is a puppy walker for the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association. Jean and her puppy, Megan, were both very well behaved! and her talk was both interesting and sometimes emotional. Jean explained that the early part of dog training centred on teaching the dog obedience and how to behave. This would normally take about 12 - 14 months to complete and then the dog would be assessed to see if it was suitable to continue its training into a fully fledged guide dog. If not the puppy would be used undertaking other important roles working with children with visual impairments.

We also welcomed Ginnie Worman, our colleague who worked at North Street Brighton for many years, and she spoke to us about her blindness and how guide dogs had transformed the quality of her life for the last 40 years. Ginnie explained that her present dog, Max, had just been retired and that she would shortly be getting her 8th guide dog.

After the talk, the club presented a cheque to Jean to assist with further puppy training.

38 members and their guests boarded the coach to make the short journey to Chichester to see the new musical version of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. We arrived on good time to grab a cup of coffee before the performance began at 2.15pm

The story, featuring a show within a show was fantastic and sparks flew on stage and off as sparring between the co-stars threaten to ruin the first night of the on stage show. Not to mention the two gun-toting gangsters with gambling debts to collect, who were just hilarious. The whole cast were full of energy and enthusiasm and you couldn't help but be drawn into the show and enjoy the performance.

Some of the scenery changes were quite fascinating with lacy material being pulled from a box and made to look like buildings, and on one occasion, a tree.

Cole Porter’s songs included Too Darn Hot, Brush Up Your Shakespeare, Another Op’nin’, Another Show, So In Love Am I and Always True to You (In My Fashion). Songs that we all knew, but perhaps had forgotten over the years.

After the show we walked across the courtyard to the Brasserie in the Park for a two course meal and coffee to round off an excellent afternoon. When making our way to the coach after the meal we stopped for a chat with some of the cast who were relaxing outside the restaurant prior to putting on another show in the evening. The star of the show, Alex Bourne, shown here chatting with some of our members.

On a sunny, but breezy day, 34 members and their guests boarded the coach bright and early to make our way down to Kent and to the "Smallest Public Railway in the World".

We arrived in Hythe in good time to grab a cup of coffee before going onto the station platform to locate the reserved carriages on the 10.30am steam train to Dungeness. You can see from the photo's that there wasn't a lot of room inside the carriages!!

The official opening of the railway was in 1927 and was built purely as a rich mans toy. Count Louis Zborowski — eminently well-known racing driver of his day (famous for owning and racing the Chitty Bang Bang Mercedes) had a vision to run a 15" gauge railway and with the aid of Captain J. E. P. Howey — a sometimes racing driver, millionaire land owner, former Army Officer and miniature railway aficionado built the Hythe to New Romney railway that was later extended to Dungeness.

They have 12 steam trains and 2 diesel trains that pull the carriages and all are exact replicas of full size locomotives and were built between 1927 and 1937. The train that took us to Dungeness was Southern Maid:

Shortly after arriving at Dungeness, a trip that took just over an hour, we were treated to a marvellous meal of local fish and chips followed by homemade apple pie and ice cream. It was served with a smile by the owner of the Light Railway and without exception everyone agreed it was an excellent meal.

After wandering around Dungeness for a short time.... a short time was more than enough time to look round Dungeness, once you had seen the power station, the lighthouse and the beach, you had seen it all!

We were soon back on the train and stopped on the return journey at New Romney Station to visit a model railway exhibition, with other displays linked in some way to the railway. A fascinating exhibition where the walls of the museum feature the RH&DR story in words and pictures, as well as posters from the railways past, pictures of special events and of the locomotives in days gone by. A fair bit of reminiscing could be heard and people playing with the toy trains!

We then return to Hythe, back on the coach for the journey back to Hove after a very enjoyable day.

Was it the cost, or the weather, or the thought of being scared witless that meant that only 22 of our members turned up to see the play 'The Haunting' in Eastbourne?

Whatever the reason, the 22 brave members boarded the coach and arrived in Eastbourne in good time for a cup of coffee before entering the Devonshire Park Theatre to see this chiller adapted from a Charles Dickens spine-tingling tale, starring David Robb and James Roache. Both actors were superb as they acted out the play in a spooky room in an ancient, crumbling mansion.

Books moving on their own, plaintive cries, strange noises and blood curdling screams all added to the suspense and kept us on the edges of our seats. To say a number of us 'jumped' a few times would be an understatement.

The story slowly unfolded and the twist at the end made the whole play a joy to watch and was thoroughly enjoyable.

Following the play, we needed to be calmed down and reassured about our sanity, so what was better than a visit to the Pavilion Tea Rooms for a cream tea that was magnificent.

Our Chairman, Roger Francis, gave a short talk and thanked Don for all his hard work in organising this event and noted it was disappointing that so few had taken the opportunity to attend this excellent event.

The golf society hasn't had much luck this year, the first meeting in the spring was washed out and at the re-arranged meeting all the participants got very wet. The Autumn meeting, played at the beautiful Dyke Golf Club in Brighton was no better as it rained the whole afternoon!

However, 21 members turned out to play in very unpleasant conditions and there was some good scoring throughout the afternoon, none better that the winner, David Pitts. Not far behind were John Jago and Gerry Arnold.

There were prizes awarded for nearest the pin and these went to John Jago and David Pitts.

For the fifth year, the Bob Russell Trophy was awarded to the player with the highest aggregate score from the Spring and Autumn meetings and this was awarded by Robin Frost to David Pitts.

A special mention to Brian Haite, Roger Tugwell and Keith Pike, who again travelled all the way down from Peterborough to play. Also Graham Clark thanked the Dyke Golf Club for looking after us so well and to Richard Box for helping with the arrangements. Graham also welcomed Ian Massbery to the Society.

We will be hoping for much better weather when the venues and dates are agreed for next years competition.

Gerry Arnold, Mike Barratt, Graham Clark, Arthur Elliott, Robin Frost, Brian Haite, Chris Hudson, John Jago, David Kaye, Jim Lorimer, Ian Massbery, David Oliver, Keith Pike, David Pitts, Ted Scale, Mel Sims, John Tucknott, Roger Tugwell, Maurice Watts and his guest Rob Neve, and Richard Wright.

It was a bright chilly day when 48 members and their guests hopped onto the coach to make the now familiar journey up to London and to the Victoria Palace Theatre to see "Billy Elliot"

We arrived in town in good time for a bite to eat or some shopping and then made our way to the theatre to be treated to a magnificent show that kept us enthralled for nearly 3 hours. The cast work tirelessly and it was easy to see why this show has been such a success since 2005 when the show opened.

The story tells of one young boy’s struggle to attain his dream despite the barriers erected by his background and community. Set against the backdrop of the 1984-85 miners’ strikes in County Durham, the musical focuses on Billy, a normal boy from a working-class background who is unable to find any fulfilment in his boxing classes despite his miner father’s wishes. However, when Billy accidentally discovered ballet and an encouraging teacher, Mrs Wilkinson, it ignited a passion for dance that is took him from backroom ballet practice to London audition rooms. At times the story was quite emotional, but also had many funny moments.

Some of our members, including our Chairman, learnt some new words during the show, with the miners and police exchanging words, not to mention the children!!

The young lad who played Billy, Kaine Ward a 13 years old, was amazing as were the remainder of the cast.

Just a quick journey over to the Strand Palace Hotel for a 2 course carvery, then back to Hove after a thoroughly enjoyable day.

105 members and their guests enjoyed a wonderful lunch at Dean's Place Hotel in Alfriston. This is the seventh year that we have been to this venue and they certainly did us proud.

It was a cold and grey day when the free coach started its journey in Lancing and made its way across the County through Hove and Brighton whilst other members made their own way with their guests to Alfriston.

In the main room the tables and surroundings were beautifully decorated with festive adornments and soon the balloons were flying across the room and onto unsuspecting victims. The meal was excellent and the service was even better. There was certainly plenty of food and it was well cooked.

Our Chairman thanked the committee for all their hard work during the year and made special mention of Don & Norma in organising the Christmas Lunch so well.

The raffle and three games of "Irish Lottery" finished the lunch off in party mood and everyone left either clutching a prize or just a happy memory of the day.