This edition of the club’s newsheet is printed (I guess stencilled?) on foolscap size paper, a paper size that exceeds the capacity of my scanner, hence these images have had to be stitched together from two sections. These are fairly large files, over 2Mb each, clicking on the thumbnails gives the full view.

  

The immediate comment from reading this document is how similar the content is to the typical club web pages of today. Indeed, it begins with an appeal from the club’s Press Secretary for submissions - an appeal with great resonance to me as former NBRC newsletter editor and current website manager.

Page 1

Racing News

The racing news tells us how the three year old medium gear ’25’ record fell twice in the same event, from the 1:8:55 set by Tom Simpson (of Cheddar Gorge fame) - by Brian Major with 1:8:18 and then by Geoff Madgwick with 1:8:00. Poor Tom was relegated to third place with 1:9:29.

A few days later, the club ’25’ yielded some faster times, with Alan Stratman leading the results with 1:5:29. Presumably this wasn't a medium gear event. Boff’s legs apparently refused to co-operate, and he DNF’d.

Colin Turner (Open events secretary) reported on requests for entry forms for a couple of events. This sounds even more laborious that the entry form system I grew up with - seems odd to have to send off for entry forms for specific events. 

NCU London Centre General Meeting

The relationship between the road racers of the NCU and the time triallists of the RTTC was of course somewhat complicated in the 1950s, and I think this brief report hints at this - The R.T.T.C. have called a Special Council meeting for 25th May to consider the situation thus created.

Social

It’s my belief that one of the aspects of club membership that’s been lost over the years is the social stuff. Perhaps I’m ignorant, but I’d never heard of a Dutch auction, but there’s a Wikipedia page about it. Apparently you bid down. Sounds fun! The club’s annual dinner must have been quite an affair if people are being exhorted to think about paying in instalments. 

Treasurers Notes

Ho ho! Some things never change. Poor old Alan Stratman is, as all club treasurers do, trying to get the members to cough up their membership fees.

Touring

The Touring Secretary (who was none other than my father), has listed three destinations for each of two Sundays. I’m not sure what the E, D and T signify (though I suspect Elevenses, Dinner (aka lunch) and Tea), but I know that he used to send out booking cards to these establishments prebooking tables. This caused problems when it was wet and no-one turned up for these rides!

Page 2

Page 2 reveals what to modern eyes seems like a considerable number of club events. Recent years has seen my current club putting on a series of 10 mile time trials, with only a couple of longer events. Even those are only 20-22 miles! In contrast, here’s the Northwood Wheelers putting on a club ‘100’ and a club ’12’!

Update: I've been told that the local clubs used to run their club events together, which explains the range of club events above.

A couple of light-hearted ‘agony aunt' items (one has to laugh at K.R. of Harrow Weald's mysterious complaint!) are followed by a list of club office bearers.