Stout for Sportsmen

Tim Koch writes:

Today, 17 March, is St. Patrick’s Day and many people, Sons of Erin or not, will mark this solemn religious occasion by drinking industrial quantities of Irish stout, most famously that produced by the ‘Guinness’ company. In the past, HTBS has produced several items noting rowing connections to the ‘black beer’ produced by the Dublin brewing family.

A summery of the rowing career of the company chairman, Rupert Guinness, 2nd Earl of Iveagh (1874-1967) was in this post of August 2010. Guinness won the Diamonds in 1895 and the Diamonds and the Wingfields in 1896.

Possibly due to the influence of Rupert, the company often included rowing in its frequently acclaimed advertising campaigns. In March 2010, Hélène Rémond shared some nice images she had found, and Greg Denieffe posted these in September 2013.

I recently came across another of the brewer’s advertisements with a rowing (or rather sculling) content, but this time in the form of a traditional celebrity endorsement rather than the clever graphics and slogans for which the company is most famous. On 6 July 1929 the ad posted below was run in the Illustrated London News.

Bert Barry’s Guinness endorsement (click to enlarge).

The text starts:

One man beats three. This is a unique feat in the history of rowing. H.A. Barry sculled over four miles: his opponents each raced only a third of the distance. Yet such was the strength and endurance of Barry that he beat each opponent in turn. In his letter on this page, Barry shows how sportsmen of every kind can improve their strength and endurance by drinking Guinness regularly.

In his endorsement Barry explains:

And there is no doubt that ‘Guinness Stout’ has done me a lot of good these last four years. It has built my muscles up wonderfully and has given me the necessary stamina – what I lacked before to stay a long distance at racing pace.

It is signed, H.A. (Bert) Barry, World and British Champion Sculler.

Advertising alcohol as a training aid for sportsmen may seem strange but this was a very different time. The 1912 Olympic sculling champion, Wally Kinnear, recommended Guinness and Champaign (‘Black Velvet’) as a remedy for over training. The old professionals would sometimes have a brandy and port on the start line as it ‘settled the stomach’. Much worse than associating alcohol with athletic success was the common idea of using sportsmen in cigarette advertising. ‘Camel’ cigarettes were especially famous for this – as this ad in Popular Mechanics of June 1935 shows.

Camels – ‘The mild cigarette the athletes smoke’. They include William Garfield ‘Bill’ Miller who came second in the coxless fours at the 1928 Olympics and second to Bobby Pearce in the single sculls in the 1932 Olympics. He was also U.S. Singles Champion, in 1930-1933. If he did actually smoke it is not surprising that a contemporary newspaper described him as ‘The husky Philadelphian’. The museum Mystic Seaport’s website describes another Bill Miller / Camel advertisement held by them though unfortunately there is no illustration. The handsome Miller was a natural choice for advertisers and, more harmlessly, he also endorsed Palmolive Shaving Cream.

Returning to Guinness, the advertisement does not make it absolutely clear but the ‘relay’ was a race from Putney to Mortlake with Barry sculling constantly over the whole distance but with a fresh opponent taking over from the previous challenger for every third of the course. Thus the race started conventionally but at Harrods a new sculler picked up the race with Barry while the original opposition to the Champion dropped out. There would be another change with a third sculler, perhaps around Chiswick Steps. I do not know if this stunt was done with the Guinness endorsement in mind or if it was something that the company picked up on after the event. However, thanks to the remarkable British Pathe website, we can see film of this possibly unique event.

RIVER RELAY RACE

Bert Barry

Herbert Arthur ‘Bert’ Barry (1902-1978) was the son of W.A. ‘Bill’ Barry (who won Doggetts in 1891 and was Professional Sculling Champion of England in 1898). Bert was a nephew of the great Ernest Barry and uncle of William L. ‘Bill’ Barry. Bert won Doggetts in 1925, and in 1927 he challenged the World Professional Sculling Champion, M.L. Goodsell, for his title. Strangely, the race took place in Vancouver, Canada, and not in Goodsell’s native Australia. The defending champion beat Barry convincingly. However, on a return match over the same course three months later, it was the Englishman who was victorious and he remained the unchallenged World Champion for nearly three years. Pathe has an especially good sound film of Bert sculling with his brother Lou around this period.

BERT BARRY

Bert with the statue of the great sculler Ned Hanlan in Toronto in 1934.

In May 1930, Bert lost the World title in his first defence to Ted Phelps, the first time in over fifty years that two Englishmen had contested for the World Sculling Championship. Bert also failed in the return match five months later. Perhaps he was not drinking enough Guinness?

Tales of the Riverbank: Hammersmith

‘Hammersmith: Boating Men Going Out’. This print shows the first Hammersmith Bridge, 1824 - 1884.

Tim Koch writes:

As someone who has boated from Hammersmith in West London for nearly thirty years, I was very interested in the recent HTBS posting, ‘Famous Photographer’s Rowing Pictures’ which showed photographs taken in 1957 of scullers on the Thames by Hammersmith Bridge and also rowers in Hammersmith’s ‘West End Boathouse’. I cannot, as yet, identify the ‘NPW Rowing Club’ to which the latter belonged – but I hope to soon. I agree that they cannot be from the amalgamated National Provincial Bank RC and the Westminster Bank RC as these two merged in 1968, were called the National Westminster Bank RC (NWBRC) and were never based at the West End Boathouse. A summery of the history of these two fine clubs is here.

The wartime pumping station by Hammersmith Bridge.

Picture number 3 of 7 in the above post (which shows a single about to scull under Hammersmith Bridge) is most interesting for a non-rowing reason. On the other side of the bridge, behind the sculler's head, appears to be some sort of strange craft. In fact it is a pumping station sitting on piles driven into the river bed. It was left over from the 1939 - 1945 War when it pumped river water to back up local fire hydrants used to fight fires resulting from the ‘Blitz’ bombing raids. Starting 7 September, 1940, London was bombed for fifty-seven consecutive nights. It was, in effect, a ‘9/11’ every night for two months. Although no longer connected by the time the photograph was taken, the remains of the water pipe that ran from the pumping station along the walkway of the bridge can still be seen (just below the lamp post on the left). Another legacy of the War was the fact that the bridge would have been painted grey at the time the picture was taken (and for many years after). It was a futile attempt to camouflage the bridge from enemy aircraft and it was only in the 1980s that the original green and gold paintwork was restored. Furnivall Sculling Club claim that their colours (‘myrtle and old gold’) come from the bridge’s first colour scheme.

More significant to the history of rowing are the two pictures of a crew relaxing by an open bay above a sign saying ‘BOATHOUSE’. This was the West End Boathouse, a place that in its long existence gave thousands of ordinary working men the opportunity to experience the joys of rowing. The building had two incarnations over perhaps 120 years – and a legacy still exists today.

Lower Mall in Hammersmith perhaps pictured in the 1860s.

The building was originally erected around the 1850s as ‘Biffin's Metropolitan Boathouse’. Biffens were an already established firm of local boat builders that had been operating since the early 19th century. The picture above shows from right to left:

The Blue Anchor pub, which still exists.

Two cottages which in 1869 were replaced by ‘Biffin’s Anchor Boathouse’ and which today is the Auriol Kensington Rowing Club.

The Rutland Pub, which also still exists. The top floor was damaged by bombing in 1941 and was removed in the 1950s.

Biffin’s Metropolitan Boathouse is to the left of the Rutland. Before the 1914 - 1918 War, it was extended to double its size, taking over the land on the left until then occupied by the house with the round window in its gable end. The result is shown in the picture below and in these Pathe Newsreels from 1919:

NEW ZEALAND FORCES HOLD REGATTA

 

and from sometime in the 1920s:

HAMMERSMITH REGATTA

The National Amateur Rowing Association Regatta, c.1924.

The history of the Biffin dynasty and their connection with boat building and both amateur and professional rowing is a long and involved story and is for another time. However, the advertisement from the British Rowing Almanac reproduced below shows the services that Biffin’s at its peak offered the rowing community.

Biffin’s advertise their wares (click to enlarge).

Whatever else they did, Biffin's most important contribution to rowing was to rent changing rooms and to provide boat hire to clubs that could never own property or afford to buy many (or any) of their own craft. A rowing club could thus come into existence by a few dozen people paying a small subscription. As an example of this, Cygnet RC had been founded at Putney in 1890 for Post Office workers. By 1904 it needed more space and moved to Biffin’s where it had the use of a dressing room and six boats for £40 a year. The annual subscription was £1.40 so only a minimum of thirty members were needed to make the club viable. The advertisement below gives some idea of the clubs that operated out of the Biffin Boathouses.

Most of the clubs mentioned in the above advertisement (including the cheekily named ‘Leander Boat Club’) were tradesmen’s clubs or were (after 1890) affiliated to the National Amateur Rowing Association. This is because they did not pass the Amateur Rowing Association’s ‘manual labour clause’ i.e. that anyone who worked with their hands could not be considered an amateur. This list of some defunct London clubs shows even more groups that rowed out of Biffin’s and other boathouses.

It is generally accepted that it takes two or three generations to build up a family business and two or three generations to run it down. This was the case with Biffin’s. In 1897, the fourth generation put most of the Metropolitan Boathouse at 16 Lower Mall up for sale. The family retained some rooms at the rear of the building and also the Anchor Boathouse at 14 Lower Mall. The new owners were the West End Amateur Rowing Association (WEARA).

The WEARA had been formed in 1880 as an association of seven rowing clubs belonging to businesses based in the fashionable West End of London, many of which were department stores. In the days of ‘jobs for life’ and of some companies housing their unmarried workers in strictly run dormitories, it was common for employees (supported by the employers) to organise social and sporting activities with their workmates. The Association organised regattas amongst the constituent clubs and the latter grew in number – especially with the purchase of the Metropolitan Boathouse.

Hammersmith 1883: The West End Amateur Rowing Association Regatta.

Looking toward the Rutland pub and Hammersmith Bridge from the WEARA boathouse. The man looking out of the window above the sign ‘ROWING’ is in fact in a boat bay. The whole bay opens to the floor and eights were manhandled out to ground level. Initially it required most members of the crew to be on the higher level but, as more of the boat came out, so pairs of people had to run down the stairs to the outside to take the weight of the increasingly protruding boat. This would be a difficult manoeuvre with a ‘light’ carvel built boat but this would also have to be done with heavy clinker built craft. It is in one of these open bays that the crew of 1957 is pictured. 

In the early part of the 20th century it was necessary to double the size of the building and by 1909 there were fifteen affiliated clubs with over a 1000 members and 30 eights between them. The most famous alumnus of the WEARA was WD (Wally) Kinnear who won the single sculls at the 1912 Olympics. Workmates introduced him to rowing through Cavendish RC, the WEARA affiliated club for employees of Debenhams Department Store. Kinnear rowed and sculled for Cavendish from 1902 until 1905 when he left to join Kensington RC. It was only at an ARA affiliated club could he attempt his dream of winning the Diamond Sculls at Henley.

WD Kinnear in Cavendish colours.

In the inter war period the WEARA thrived and in the 1920s a rowing tank was built as a memorial to the 125 members who died in the 1914 - 1918 War. Things were not so good following the 1939 - 1945 War and the building slowly fell into disrepair. In 1964 it was put up for sale but no buyer came forward and the structure deteriorated further. In 1970, Hammersmith Council declared it a ‘dangerous structure’ and it had to be evacuated. Some of the clubs in the WEARA found other homes but many disappeared forever. The one positive thing to come out of this sad situation was that when the building was demolished and replaced with flats in the early 1980s, the developers had to build a new boathouse as a condition of planning consent. The ‘New West End Boathouse’ is sited behind Furnivall Sculling Club and, although it is much smaller than the building it replaced, it today holds the eights and fours belonging to Auriol Kensington RC and to Furnivall SC.

Lower Mall, Hammersmith in 2004. From right to left: the Blue Anchor pub, Auriol Kensington RC, the Rutland pub, the flats that replaced the WEARA Boathouse, Furnivall Sculling Club (with the ‘V’ shaped roof). Unseen behind Furnivall is the New West End Boathouse, an undistinguished structure which, for those that know its origins, is a rather sad legacy of a rather remarkable past.

Guiseppe, Wally and Friends

WDK, New York Herald

Tim Koch writes,

After posting my recent piece on Guiseppe Sinigaglia and his rivalry and friendship with Wally Kinnear (particularly at the Coupe des Nations d’Aviron in Paris between 1912 and 1914), I remembered a picture archive first noted on HTBS by Hélène Rémond. The Gallica Digital Library is part of the National Library of France. Type in ‘aviron’ (rowing) and all sorts of goodies appear. The pictures can be viewed in fantastic detail as they were originally shot on large format ‘plate’ cameras and have been scanned in very high resolution. To enlarge, initially click on the magnifying glass symbol on the top left and then, in the new window, click on the magnifying glass with the plus sign on the top right.

I found a very nice picture of Sinigaglia posing in his boat at the 1913 European Championships and another of him racing on the on the Grand Terneuzen Canel on the same day.

It was also interesting to find a previously unknown picture of Wally Kinnear at the 1913 Coupe des Nations. It had been wrongly labelled as ‘the English rower Pettmann’, instead of ‘the Scottish sculler Kinnear’.

Not all the pictures are of Frenchmen. Here are two World Champions, on the left Darcy Hadfield of New Zealand, then still an amateur, and on the right, the professional sculler Ernest Barry of Great Britain.

Here is a selection of my favourite faces from the archive, chosen on character rather than rowing achievements: Gaston Delaplane photographed in July 1911; The aristocratic looking Anatol Peresselenzeff, posing in August 1913. He was a man with French and Russian connections who also sculled for Thames Rowing Club in London; I do not know who Monsieur Pichard was but I suspect that he enjoyed his sculling. A rare unposed picture; M. Horodinsky was probably tough opposition; It looks as though the stylish M. Cheval is patiently awaiting the invention of lycra.

C’est Magnifique.

Guiseppe Sinigaglia – ‘The ‘Italian Giant’

Guiseppe Sinigaglia – ‘The ‘Italian Giant’.

Tim Koch writes,

HTBS of 29 July asked, "Is the Mystery Man the Champion Sculler Guiseppe Sinigaglia?" The answer is ‘No’. Sinigaglia was 14 stone 10 pounds (93.5 kg / 206 pounds) and 6 foot 4 inches (193 cms). This is big for modern times. By the standards of the turn of the century he was, in the words of The Times newspaper, ‘the Italian Giant’. The man in the picture is of average (or even below average) size compared to everyone else in the photograph.

What I know of Guiseppe Sinigaglia comes through my researches on the career of William ‘Wally’ Kinnear (1880-1974) the world’s best sculler in the period 1910 to 1913. The paths of the two men crossed several times.

Kinnear raced in the Coupe des Nations d’Aviron, a 4,000-metre race on the Seine in Paris, in 1912, 1913 and 1914. Though 14 lbs / 12 kg lighter and 4 inches / 10 cms shorter, he beat Sinigaglia to second place in the first two races but lost to him in 1914, claiming that a tug washed him down for part of the way. The French newspaper Le Martin reported on the 1913 race:

Kinnear showed his imposing superiority. He defeated his competition without rushing, when it suited him.

In 1965 Kinnear recalled his first Coupe des Nations in an interview recorded on audio tape by his son, Donald:

.... I met an Italian called Sinigaglia, a big 6 foot 4 man, 14 1/2 stone... to cut a long story short, I beat him. Before the race on the Seine I was introduced to a man called Deperdussin. He had a big factory on the river, he made all sorts of aircraft... He said to me if you beat this Italian I’ll present you with one of my sculling boats.... His warehouse or factory was a mile from the start and when I passed his place I was just been beaten by Sinigaglia, he went by me and I thought ‘there goes my French sculling boat’. Anyway I stuck to Sinigaglia and after another half mile .... I looked to my right hand side and there he was, beaten, stopped and that’s how I won my first Coupe de Nations.

W.D. Kinnear after winning the Coup des Nations d’Aviron in 1913. The legs are not obviously those of a champion.

Kinnear then recalled what happened after he lost in Paris in 1914:

.... Sinigaglia asked me if I was going for (Henley’s Diamond Sculls) after that, I said no I’m not, I’m finished sculling at home. So he came over for the Diamonds..... and in the final he met the man who had beat me in the first heat in 1912 when I was stale, a chap that I could scull rings round.

This was C.M. Stuart. There follows a long story about the victorious Stuart boasting that ‘he knew that he could do it’ while not acknowledging that Kinnear was over-trained in preparation for the upcoming Stockholm Olympics. Fifty years on, Kinnear was still rankled and clearly contemptuous of Stuart:

.....for the final of the (1914) Diamonds it had turned a bit cold, very cold, and being an Italian he.., they don't like cold weather... his advisor and trainer came up to me and said Sinigaglia refuses to go out for the final, he’s sitting there and you must come and talk to him.... I couldn’t talk Italian, I could talk English in my own way, and I said to his trainer, you tell him that he's a bloody coward. He told him and he flared up in a Italian way and he had to keep him off me and I said, all right just you go out, you’ve got Stuart... what are you worrying about, just because he beat me, you think you’ve got something to do, you’ve got nothing to do. All you’ve got to do is listen for my voice half way over the course and I’ll shout out ‘Now Sinigaglia!’ in my own way and you’ll hear that. Well he went, he came down the course, he was leading off the mark and he led for just a few hundred yards up the river and then he let Stuart go sailing by and Stuart was as white as a sheet and I said ‘Now Sinigaglia’ (laughs) and he just opened up and went by him and beat him anyhow. From that day I felt that I should not have done that, there was a feeling against me for some time, they had just felt that I had sponsored an Italian to win the Diamonds and beat an Englishman at Henley. But I’ve got reasons of my own for that...

Thus Kinnear claimed a share of the credit for Sinigaglia’s victory. The idea that he would not go out because it was cold seems a little unlikely but Johan ten Berg writes that Sinigaglia ‘is mentioned as one of the entries (in the 1912 Holland Beker), but as he isn’t mentioned in the results in the newspapers, he may not have started’. Johan continues, ‘In another article it states that Gerhard Nunninghof, Kölner Club für Wassersport, won a heat on walk-over as Sinigaglia did not show up at the start’. Thus the man did have a record of not turning up for his races. Nowadays, he would perhaps be treated by a sports psychologist.

More certain is that the Henley programme had the big man at 14 stone 10 pounds (93.5 kg / 206 pounds) while Stuart was down as 11 stone (70 kg / 154 pounds) so it is arguable that the Italian would have eventually passed the Englishman even without Kinnear’s inspiring call (which in any case would be rather difficult to hear on the water). Further, the account of the race in The Times newspaper of 6 July 1914 does not fully agree with Kinnear’s version:

Stuart, who rowed 37 strokes in his first minute, dashed off with the lead, the Italian doing 38. Sinigaglia hit the piles at the top of the Island and this enabled Stuart to lead by two lengths at the quarter mile. Sinigaglia reduced this by half a length at the next signal and, spurting hard, was nearly level at Fawley. A great race followed to the mile. Stuart answered his opponent’s spurts and kept just ahead. Sinigaglia sculled with great power and at the lower end of the Enclosure Stuart suddenly stopped, completely rowed out and had to be lifted from his boat onto the umpire’s launch. Sinigaglia finished alone.

(Sinigaglia’s Henley opponents had a hard time of it. In a heat against Dibble of Don Rowing Club, Toronto, on 3 July, the Canadian fell out of his boat at the finish and had to be rescued by the umpire).

The newspaper report on the final may be more accurate than Kinnear’s recollections but is not such a good story. There is a poignant conclusion to the Wally’s memories of France in the summer of 1914:

I had a good time in Paris. An English gentleman, a millionaire, took me all over the place... We had a wonderful time... we were having lunch on the Marne, on the lawn having Champagne with this gentleman and within a month the Germans had overrun this part...

Within two years of the outbreak of the First World War, Guiseppe Sinigaglia, ‘the Italian Giant’, the winner of the 1914 Coup des Nations and of the 1914 Diamond Sculls would be dead – along with millions of others. It must have seemed that ‘Champagne on the lawn’ had ended forever.

Le Martin, 4 June 1912. The order of the Coup des Nations at this stage is probably the French-Russian, Peressenlenzeff in the lead followed by Sinigaglia and then Kinnear.

Is the Mystery Man the Champion Sculler Guiseppe Sinigaglia?

A photo from the 1912 Holland Beker, which was won by Bernhard von Gaza, who is standing behind the table with the cups, wearing a hat and a victory sash. Johan ten Berg writes that ‘the little man seen on the right next to von Gaza is Gerhard Nunninghof, Kölner Club für Wassersport. Nunninghof's partner in the double scull, Paul Rosskath, is further to the right with his hands in his pockets. I suspect that the man between the two women on the right might be Georg Voth, Rostocker Ruder Club, Rostock’. The 'mystery' person in this picture is the man second on the left from von Gaza. Is this the Italian renown sculler Guiseppe Sinigaglia, the 1911 two-time European champion and later the winner of the Diamonds? (Click on the picture to enlarge it.)

Editor Johan ten Berg of the Netherlands, one of HTBS many friends, sent an e-mail with an interesting photograph from the 1912 Holland Beker, which was won by the German sculler Bernhard von Gaza (who HTBS has written about before, as an author of rowing books and as the winner of the 1911 Holland Beker, where the runner-up was the Cambridge sculler Eric Fairbairn).

The German sculler was killed during the First World War (as was Eric Fairbairn), but ‘in the 1912 picture there is possibly another rower that was killed during the War’, writes Johan. He continues, ‘the man happens to be Guiseppe Sinigaglia (S.C. Lario, Como)’ from Italy. Johan writes that he is not certain, but surfing around on the internet, finding some photographs of the Italian sculler, it might well be him in the picture. Johan writes that Sinigaglia ‘is mentioned as one of the entries [in the 1912 Holland Beker], but as he isn’t mentioned in the results in the newspapers, he may not have started’. In another article it states that Gerhard Nunninghof, Kölner Club für Wassersport, won a heat on walk-over as Sinigaglia did not show up at the start.

Is this Guiseppe Sinigaglia, asks Johan ten Berg?

Maybe a reader in Italy can help us to answer the question if the man in the photograph above is the famous Italian sculler Sinigaglia?

Guiseppe Sinigaglia might not have won the Holland Beker, but he was a very successful oarsman. In his hometown of Como, he became the 1911 European Champion first in the double scull (with Teodore Mariani) and then in the single scull, where he was described as ‘outstanding elegant’ and ‘much admired, even by his opponents’. Sinigaglia did not compete at the Olympic rowing regatta in Stockholm in July 1912, but a month later, he did race in the single scull at the European Championships in Geneva, coming second after the Belgian sculler Polydore Veirman, who had taken the Olympic silver medal in the Swedish capital, being beaten by the Scotsman Wally Kinnear. Veirman was a very good all-round oarsman who had become European champion already in 1901 in the eight.

The 1913 European Championships were held on Veirman’s homewater in Ghent. The single scull final proved to be a total fiasco: the umpire stopped the race twice and ordered two re-starts. In the end he disqualified Sinigaglia and the French sculler Peresselenzeff (of Russian origin), and as Veirman capsized, the victory went to the only sculler still afloat, Frederich Graf, the first German to become European champion. It has to be mentioned, though, that Graf, who was self-taught and never had a trainer or coach during his sculling career, had been in the lead throughout all three starts. The First World War put a stop to the 1914 European Championships, but the Italian sculler took the Diamond Challenge Cup at Henley that year, beating C.M. Stuart of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Wanting to serve his country, Sinigaglia signed up in the Royal Italian Army, where he in 1916 advanced to the rank of lieutenant. On 9 August 1916, he led his men in a charge at Monte San Michele. At the attack Sinigaglia was hit by Austrian fire and, badly wounded, he died the following day, 32 years old. He was awarded the Silver Medal of Military Valor, and later the stadium in Como was named after him, Stadio Giuseppe Sinigalia.

Read more about Giuseppe Sinigalia on Wikipedia, in Italian or in English.

In a newspaper on 18 February, 1915, was a report that von Gaza had been injured in his left arm by a grenade. A year later, in March 1916, the German sculler was awarded the Iron Cross. On 19 December the same year, a newspaper reported that von Gaza had died on the western front a few days earlier.

Many thanks to Johan ten Berg for sending the photographs and giving information about Sinigalia.

100 Years Ago Today...

HTBS’s Tim Koch writes about his fellow [Auriol] Kensington club member, William ‘Wally’ Kinnear:

“One hundred years ago today, at 5 p.m. on 19 July 1912, the final of the Olympic Sculls started.

Veirman started with a long, energetic spurt and, at the 500 metre mark, led by about half a length. Kinnear’s long stroke, with its masterly recovery, brought the representative of Great Britain level with the Belgian oarsman at the kilometre mark, and very soon afterwards Kinnear was a length ahead. All the efforts of the Belgian were fruitless, and Kinnear won safely in 7 minutes, 47 seconds.

From The Official Report of the Stockholm Games.”

No Sex Please, We're British...

Lillian and Wally Kinnear

The loyal readers of HTBS know by now that the Daily Mail, one of Great Britain’s infamous tabloids, is hardly HTBS’s daily read, but we cannot help linking to an article in the paper about Jenny Searle, Greg Searle’s wife, who, according to the tabloid, is unhappy to have her handsome husband off training to try to get his second Olympic rowing gold medal at the London Games. As you all know, he took his first one twenty years ago at the 1992 Barcelona Games.

It’s a funny article (many of the Daily Mail’s articles are, although not all of them are supposed to be; another humorous thing is that the majority of the paper’s readers seem to have no sense of humour at all, I mean, read the commentaries!), but before you click on the link to the article, I would like to put the content in the article in perspective with what another wife of an Olympian said one hundred years ago, when Lillian Kinnear, wife of the 1912 Olympic sculling champion Wally Kinnear,

“used to go around and tell all the wives that their husbands were in training - no sex! They were going to Henley Regatta, no sex. She would really lay the law down. It was one of the wives who told me this, she said that she put the fear of God into you.”

The above is a quote from Tim Koch’s entertaining post The Story of Wally Kinnear, Or ‘Not Tonight…’ (22 May, 2011). It seems to be the opposite with Jenny Searle – well, if we are to believe the article in the Daily Mail! Read first Tim’s piece about Lillian Kinnear before going to the article about Jenny Searle here.

Listomania

Would 'Muttle' make The List?

What do you think of when you hear ‘rowing list’? Maybe you are thinking of Megan Kalmoe’s ‘Hot List’, or one of the lists of rowers that sometimes pop up on FISA’s website? I had not really considered to post a list of rowers on HTBS, as I have been happy to occasionally post entries on some of my ‘rowing heroes’. But a week ago, I received an e-mail from my HTBS colleague Tim Koch in London. Tim had got an e-mail from David Brooks, a Brit living in the USA. David, who calls himself an ‘amateur sports historian’, was interested in getting information about some British oarsmen to be able to put together what he calls ‘an all-time British rowing squad.’

Both Tim and I thought that it sounded like a good idea for a discussion on HTBS. Tim immediately threw in five names: Steve Redgrave, Matthew Pinsent, Jack Beresford Jnr., Guy Nickalls, and the professional sculler Ernest Barry. Tim also mentions one of his (and mine) rowing heroes, Wally Kinnear, as someone who might be on a ‘scullers’ list’ with Barry.

I also contacted some rowing historians to see whom they might like to have on their ‘Top Ten British Rowers List’. There I run into problems. You see, they do not ‘do’ lists. However, they were happy to drop some names. Peter Mallory, author of the four-volume, 2,500-page, The Sport of Rowing (2011), mentions: Stanley Muttlebury, Beresford Snr., and Ran Laurie. ‘Beresford Jr. could row lightweight for sure. And don’t forget Mark Hunter [who is featured in the current issue of Rowing & Regatta, May 2012]. I’m not too impressed with British professionals beyond Ernie and perhaps Bert Barry,’ Peter writes. He also mentions ‘the Old Crocks’, the Leander eight that took gold at the Olympic regatta in 1908.

Well-known rowing historian Tom Weil writes:

‘Two scullers of y’oar who merit very serious consideration are A.A. Casamajor and F.S. Kelly, each a giant of his era. By his death at 28 (3 days before the 1861 Wingfields), Casamajor had won the Diamonds in 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858 and 1861, and the Wingfields in 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1859, and 1860 (as well as the Goblets in 1855, 1856, 1858, and 1860, the Stewards in 1856, the Wyfolds in 1856, and the Grand in 1857 and 1859).  This records includes multiple Henley victories in each of the 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858 regattas.

‘Kelly (who was born in Australia, but spent his entire rowing career in England, starting with stroking Eton to the Ladies’ in 1899) won the Diamonds in 1902, 1903 (over Beresford Sr) and 1905, and the Wingfields in 1903 (as well as the Stewards in 1906, the Grand in 1903, 1904, and 1905, and gold in the UK eight in the 1908 Olympics [‘the Old Crocks’]). Kelly’s Diamonds time stood for 30+ years before beaten by Joe Burk. Kelly also died young, a casualty of WWI.’

Albert de Laud Long

Another HTBS colleague, Greg Denieffe, writes, ‘I’m no great fan of ‘listomania’ but that’s because I’m no good at them!’ However, Greg drops a name:

‘One person that I would put forward,’ Greg writes, ‘to be on an overall top 10 sweep list would be Albert de Laud Long. A Wingfield Sculls winner in 1869 and again in 1870 he won a staggering 18 trophies at Henley between 1868 and 1877. Five times a Grand winner, eight Stewards’ wins, four in the Goblets and a win in the Coxless fours of 1872. He was also in the London R.C. crew in the “1872 Anglo-American Boat-Race,” in which London R.C. beat Atalanta B.C. of New York from Mortlake to Putney.’

Tomorrow, HTBS will present David Brooks’s ‘all-time British rowing squad’, and some ‘rules’ for those of you who would like to contribute with your own ‘Top Ten British Rowers List’, or should I say ‘lists’ as there is going to be more than one.

Tall Boys

Jack and Wally

HTBS’s London correspondent Tim Koch writes,

Yesterday’s HTBS item, ‘Heavy Boys’, on the heights and weights of some famous past rowers noted that weights are fairly easy to discover (especially if they rowed at Henley Royal Regatta) but heights are rarely officially recorded. It also contained my suggestion that, if a rower served in the British armed forces in either of the World Wars, their service record containing their personal details may be available online. They are stored at the British National Archives (which is situated right next to the Thames at Kew, I have often rowed past it) and they can be downloaded for £3.40 each. As I am currently writing about W.D. ‘Wally’ Kinnear, the 1912 Olympic Sculling Champion, I recently accessed his papers.

Kinnear’s record reveals that when he enlisted in 1916, at the age of 36, he was 6 foot and 1/2 an inch tall, had a 40 inch chest, brown hair, blue eyes and a ‘fresh’ complexion. He joined the Royal Naval Air Service (which was part of the Royal Navy) but, as the RNAS was merged with the Royal Flying Corps in April 1918 to form the Royal Air Force, he then became a founder member of the RAF. A very telling thing was that he gave his civilian occupation as ‘motor driver’. This was not true, he was a travelling salesman. I think that he wanted to drive and so, as a result of this suddenly acquired skill, he spent the War delivering aircraft parts. It was characteristic of the man that he decided that he wanted something and so made it happen. Speaking in 1965 he revealed that in 1900, having never rowed, he visited Henley Regatta and decided that he would like to win the Diamond Sculls:

‘…I’d already dedicated myself to win the Diamonds and in all the years that I was rowing and sculling and living it was with one view of winning those Sculls and I won them the first time of asking and ten years after I had (first) seen the Sculls, I hadn’t been to Henley in between there you know…?’

The wonderful picture above has not been published before, it is from the Kinnear family album. It shows Jack Beresford (left) and Wally in, I think the 1950s. It shows two men who obviously have great respect and affection for each other and it also clearly shows two powerful men, even in their later years. I imagine they both gave crushing handshakes. From it I think we can deduce that Jack is fraction taller than Wally so he would be about 6 foot 1 inch.

Jack Beresford would certainly have a service record as it was a leg wound received in the First World War that caused him to give up rugby in favour of rowing. ‘Jumbo’ Edwards was, of course, a Group Captain in the RAF and a decorated war hero. Looking at their ages, all the other could have served in the 1939-1945 War and, considering their physical fitness, presumably did. Thankfully, they all survived.

Facts About Wally...

Two great scullers, Ernest Barry and Wally Kinnear

The other day, someone left a comment on an old entry about William ‘Wally’ Kinnear of Kensington Rowing Club, who hundred years ago became Olympic champion in the single sculls at the Stockholm Games. The question is short: ‘Does anyone know how tall Wally was and what he weighed at his peak?’

The question goes to HTBS’s Tim Koch, rowing historian and member of Auriol Kensington RC in London. Tim, who right now is doing research and will produce a 5,000 word piece about Wally in time for the centenary of his Olympic win, writes,

Wally’s weights given in the Henley programmes were 12 stone 10 pounds for 1910 and 12 6 for 1911 and 12 5 for 1912. I do not think he was much over 6 foot (his oldest son was 6'4''). I have downloaded WDK’s Service Record from the First World War. As he was 36 when he enlisted in 1916, he served in England as a lorry driver for the Royal Naval Air Service. In 1918 the RNAS was amalgamated with the Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force. Thus he served with the Royal Navy and the RAF. The record says height - 6 foot and 1/2 inch, chest - 40 inches (not big!), hair - brown, eyes - blue, complexion - fresh. The attached picture above shows that he did not possess the biggest legs that sculling has ever seen.

The Art Of Being Aware Of Rowing History...

Debenhams, the old department store that was founded in London in 1778, is launching a new clothing collection this spring, the Daily Telegraph wrote in yesterday’s paper. Debenhams, which now seems to have stores all over the place, asked members of Thames Rowing Clubs to introduce this nautical collection called Nautica. I really hope that Thames RC and its members are making a couple of quid out of this deal. And to be honest, the article in the Telegraph is more about the Tideway club than the clothes. Members of the club are interviewed and talked about, amongst them, the great Olympic champion and medallist Jack Beresford.

However, I cannot help thinking that if Debenhams knew a little more about rowing history and the company’s own history, they might have picked another rowing club in London to help them launch new clothes in an Olympic year (please, members of Thames RC, don’t take it personally…). Because if the department store had picked Auriol Kensington Rowing Club by Hammersmith Bridge, they could have made a big hullabaloo about one the club’s finest oarsmen and stars: William ‘Wally’ Kinnear, who took an Olympic gold medal in the single sculls 100 years ago, at the Stockholm Games, and was working for…. yes, correct: Debenhams!

Debenhams actually displayed his ‘Pineapple Cup’ in their store window after Wally Kinnear had won his first Diamonds at the 1910 Henley Royal Regatta. Read more about Kinnear and Debenhams in HTBS’s Tim Koch’s great article The Story of Wally Kinnear, or ‘Not Tonight…’

Tim Koch: Four Famous Scullers 1931 New Year's Greetings

A Happy New Year from the four greatest scullers of their age!

Caricatures from a 1931 report on a Christmas / New Year Dinner for some of the most popular sportsmen of the day. In those days, top scullers were well known public figures and references to 'The Diamonds' needed no explanation!

It’s Movember – Grow A Mo!

So, you think it’s November? Well, you are wrong, it’s Movember. What is Movember you ask? Movember - ‘celebration of the moustache’ - is a global campaign to raise funds for men’s health, and in some countries, like the UK, the campaign is mainly concentrating on raising funds to fight prostate and testicular cancer. So on 1 Movember/November many men around the world sign up with a clean-shaven face at www.movember.com to raise money for this campaign, promising not to shave during the whole month: Grow a Mo!

British Rowing and many of its rowers, both men and women, ‘Mo Bros’ and ‘Mo Sisters’ (of course, the later with a fake or painted moustache), are participating in this month-long event. Last year, £11.7 million was raised around the UK alone, British Rowing's magazine Rowing & Regatta writes in its latest issue.

To actually find a famous British oarsman with a really good looking ‘Mo’, I had to go back in time, to two of the most well-known oarsmen of their time: Ernest Barry and Harry Blackstaffe, two handsome chaps. In the photograph on top, Barry, in the bow-seat, was the professional world champion in 1912, and Blackstaffe, in the stroke-seat, was Olympic champion in the single sculls in 1908. Between them, their clean-shaved friend Wally Kinnear, Olympic champion in the single in 1912.

Although, I wholeheartedly support a campaign like this, my dear wife, Mrs. B., made it clear already when we dated (in Wales, as a matter of fact) in the 1990s that our relationship would never last if I grow a moustache, or any other facial hair. Then, on top of that, a couple of years ago, our cute children could not stop laughing when I showed them my old Swedish drivers license from the beginning of the 1980s showing me with my elegant ‘Mo’.

But to you who are allowed: Grow and Groom!

The 2011 Wingfield's Is Coming Up

This photograph is showing Wally Kinnear’s Wingfield Scull medal with three bars for his victories in 1910, 1911, and 1912.

HTBS’s special London correspondent, Tim Koch, writes about the upcoming Wingfield’s,

The 171st Wingfield Sculls (The British Amateur Sculling Championship and Championship of the Thames) will take place on Thursday, 27 October 2011, over the ‘Championship Course’, Putney to Mortlake. My report on last year’s race gives the history of this special event, a ‘vision of glorious amateurism’, and explains why it is more than ‘just a battle of limb and lung size’.

The women’s race has three contenders. Anna Watkins is last years Wingfield’s Champion and winner of a bronze in the double sculls at the Beijing Olympics and gold in the doubles at the last two World Championships. Beth Rodford won a gold in the quadruple scull at the 2010 World’s and has won medals in various World Cup quad events. Ro Bradbury is the underdog, her best performance has been silver in the quad at the Munich World Cup.

Three-time-winner Alan Campbell will have another go at the Wingfield’s on 27 October.

The men’s race is between five contestants. Alan Campbell has won the Wingfield’s three times and is Britain’s leading single sculler having come first in the GB Senior Trials, 2005-2011. In the World Championships, he won bronze in 2010 and 2011 and silver in 2009. Tom Solesbury, an Oxford Blue and Henley winner, has qualified for the quad in the 2012 Olympics. Adam Freeman-Pask is a lightweight (rarely a good thing on the Thames Tideway) and has raced in the lightweight single in the World Championships, 2008-2011. Henry Pelly is a double Cambridge Blue and won the Stewards’ at Henley in 2008. Alan Sinclair won the Prince of Wales Challenge Cup (men’s intermediate quad sculls) at Henley this summer.

The two races will be umpired by Ellise Sherwell, the winner of the women’s race in 2007, and the prizes will be presented by the Lord Mayor of London elect, David Wootton. HTBS will, of course, be there and we hope to put some video of the races on the blog for all to view.

The Story Of Wally Kinnear, Or ‘Not Tonight...’

One of Great Britain's finest scullers was W.D. Kinnear, who most of his rowing career rowed for Kensington Rowing Club. HTBS's Tim Koch of Auriol Kensington RC tells the story:

The recent HTBS posting, “A Daring German Rowing Book”, quoted a 1907 training manual as advising abstinence from sex in the run up to important regattas. This was not just one person’s eccentric idea. A few years ago I interviewed John Rogers who was Captain of Kensington Rowing Club from 1954 to 1964. He recalled someone that he had known well, Kensington’s most famous son, W.D. Kinnear, winner of the single sculls in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. It seemed that, in his coaching days following the 1914-1918 War:

“[Kinnear’s wife, Lillian] used to go around and tell all the wives that their husbands were in training - no sex! They were going to Henley Regatta, no sex. She would really lay the law down. It was one of the wives who told me this, she said that she put the fear of God into you.”

The picture above shows Wally, Lillian and one of their children in 1910. ‘WDK’ was then in strict training as he was nearing the peak of his sculling career so, presumably, the child was conceived in the winter.

Another one of Kinnear’s training methods relates to a recent HTBS posting on rowing and alcohol. A 1978 letter in the Auriol Kensington archive from John Rogers states:

“In 1912 [Kinnear] was unexpectedly beaten in the Diamond Sculls at Henley. He was over trained (preparing for the Stockholm Olympics in a few weeks time) and told me that part of the remedy for this was to drink ‘Black Velvet’, a mixture of Guinness and Champaign…”

William Duthie Kinnear (1880-1974) was born in Laurencekirk, Scotland. His family called him ‘Bill’ or ‘Billy’ but the rowing world was to call him ‘Wally’ or (inevitably) ‘Jock’. As a young man he went to London to make his career. In 1902 he obtained a post as a salesman for the Debenhams department store. As was common in those days of ‘jobs for life’ and paternalistic employers, the store had its own rowing club (‘Cavendish’) based at the ‘West End Amateur Rowing Association’ boathouse in Hammersmith, West London. This was home to many such clubs including one for the employees of Harrods store. Kinnear’s talent was soon obvious and he won the West End ARA Sculling Championship in 1903, 1904 and 1905. In 1905 he joined Kensington Rowing Club and was to remain a loyal member until his death 69 years later. He had many successes in regattas over the next few years but it was between 1910 and 1912 that he reached his peak. Some credit for this must go to his great friend and informal coach, Harry Blackstaffe, the 1908 Olympic Sculling Champion.

The ‘triple crown’ of sculling in those days was the ‘Diamond Sculls’ at Henley Royal Regatta, the ‘Wingfield Sculls’ (The English Amateur Championship), and the ‘London Cup’ at the Metropolitan Regatta. Wally won the Diamonds in 1910 (beating Rudolph Lucas of Mainzer Club, Germany, easily) and again in 1911 when he had a harder fight against Eric W. Powell. The Times newspaper called it ‘a splendid race and a fine exhibition of sculling’. In the Wingfield’s, Kinnear beat Robert C. Bourne in 1910, was unchallenged and sculled over in 1911 and beat E.D.P. Pinks in 1912. He won the London Cup in 1910 (beating R.C. Bourne) and again the following year.

By 1912 it was clear that Wally Kinnear was ‘world class’. Henley was the closest thing to a regular international competition that existed at the time but the (perhaps) lesser regarded Olympic Games was approaching. There had been four Games previously. In 1896 the rowing was cancelled due to bad weather. In Paris in 1900 there was a reasonable spread of wins among the entries in the Olympic Regatta but in St Louis in 1904 all the competitors were American (save for one Canadian eight) and in London in 1908 the British won most of the rowing medals. The 1912 Games was held in Stockholm, Sweden, and many regard it as the first truly modern Games. The IOC President from 1952 to 1972, Avery Brundage, is quoted in The Olympics: A History of the Modern Games (by Allen Guttermann, 1992) as saying:

“The efficiency and almost mathematical precision with which the events were handled and the formal correctness of the arrangements made a great impression on me.”

In those days each country could enter two crews or scullers in each event. The Amateur Rowing Association chose Kinnear and A.G. McCulloch of Leander Club who had won the Diamonds in 1908 and came second in the Olympic Sculls in the same year. In the event, illness meant that McCulloch did not go to Stockholm.

What is particularly striking by modern standards is how informal the whole thing was. A letter from the ARA Secretary to the Kensington Secretary on 11th May 1912 (just over two months before the Olympic Regatta was due to be held on 18th and 19th July) says:

“I have already sent in an entry of two scullers, one of which will be W. Kinnear. The Swedish Committee are not asking for any names until July 1st. I will send W. Kinnear his entry forms early in June.

P.S.
As it will take some time for a racing boat to reach Stockholm, W. Kinnear may wish to have one sent out before he leaves England. He might perhaps like me to make arrangements with the Captain of Leander Club to have his boat sent out with the Leander eight. If so I will let you know dates etc early in June.”

In the event, Wally’s path to Olympic Gold was a fairly easy one. He beat Stahnke of Germany and then Veirman of Belgium. In the words of The Times, ‘there was no sculler who was able to make W.D. Kinnear extend himself’. This is not to take anything away from the Scotsman – great champions win before the final starts. Only four Britons have won world amateur single sculling titles: Blackstaffe of Vesta (1908 Olympics), Kinnear of Kensington (1912 Olympics), Beresford of Thames (1924 Olympics) and Haining of Auriol Kensington (1993, 1994, 1995 World Championships).

In his 1978 letter, John Rogers recalls that Wally had:

“[...] a very warm and endearing personality. He was always ready with a word of encouragement no matter how new or novice a member and was greatly loved and respected by all [… his rowing career) must have entailed a certain amount of hardship as he was not a rich man.”

Two stories illustrate the fact that WDK was a humble salesman mixing in a world of so called ‘gentlemen’. His great friend was a fanatical Kensington oarsman, George Newby, who was a much wealthier man. Wally was honoured when asked to be ‘best man’ at his wedding and so gave him the most valuable thing he owned – his 1910 Diamond Sculls ‘Pineapple Cup’ (ninety years later the Newby family donated the prized object to Auriol Kensington Rowing Club). As a prequel to that story, shortly after winning the Diamonds for the first time, Wally was asked by Debenhams if they could display the Cup in one of the store windows. In those days you did not refuse a ‘request’ from your employers and so he agreed. Many of the rowing establishment thought this was very vulgar and the story goes that Guy Nickalls snubbed him until he won the Olympic Sculls when he condescended to say ‘Well done, Kinnear’.

George Newby’s son, the travel writer Eric Newby, has slightly different memories of Wally:

“My father […] was an all round sportsman [... who] used to go down to Whitechapel to be ‘pummelled’ by pugilists in order to toughen himself up, and after vigorous outings on the Thames [...] used to bathe, winter and summer, in the [...] river [...] before setting off to work [...] His ambition was that I should win the Diamond Sculls at Henley, and in this ambition he was aided and abetted by my godfather, a crusty old Scot if there ever was one, who had himself won the Diamonds and the Stockholm Olympics (in A Traveller’s Life, Eric Newby, 1982).

Looking at the picture above, taken when Wally was in his eighties, a twinkle in his eye and a bottle of whisky in his hand, I don’t think that I would use the epithet ‘crusty old Scot’. He looks like fun to me.

This was, indeed, many great stories about one fine sculler – thank you, Tim!

Wingfield Sculls Centenary Dinner Menu

Autobiographer Vivian Nickalls, Wally Kinnear, and Bill of Fare composer, Guy Nickalls.

Here is a little foot note to the wonderful story Tim Koch provided about the Wingfield Sculls Centenary Dinner which was posted yesterday. In Vivian Nickalls’s autobiography Oars, Wars, and Horses – how I love this title – which was published in 1932, Nickalls mentions this dinner (pages 42-45) and the Bill of Fare which was composed by his brother, Guy Nickalls. It is really an oarsman’s menu,

“THE START with WHERRY – good OAR d’Oeuvres NO CRABS included – soup TURN TURTLE – fish SOLES PRESSED (against the stretcher) – Cutlets supreme with CUTTERS (far astern) – NO FOWLS Pheasants with NO FEATHERING – THE STARTERS – Peches TO Melba – BEST and BEST BOAT Ice – Last Course – CHAMPION CHAMPIGNONS with a HARD ROW Over. Wines without Whines – Champagne – Real Pain for those on Fixed Seats Only – Port – Starting Always On The Port Side.”

Vivian Nickalls writes that three more Wingfields’ winners were invited to the dinner, but F.L. Playford was very ill, and both A.A. Stuart and A.H. Cloutte were abroad at the time of the dinner. Nickalls seems to have collected the autographs of the fourteen men present (Above; observe the charming little drawing of a sculler after Harry Blackstaffe’s name!).

The Rowing English Gentleman

In a message regarding a previous entry on my blog, Tim Koch of Auriol Kensington RC in London has some entertaining comments: “Your recent posting, ‘An Oarsman’s Dress Code’, included two of my interests: rowing history and classic men’s clothes. The archive at Auriol Kensington nicely illustrates how men’s formal dress changed during the Twentieth Century. The splendid picture ‘Wingfield Sculls of the Thames’ [above] shows a dinner given by the Earl of Iveagh (Rupert Guinness) held at his house, 11 St James’s Square, on 11th December 1930 for past winners of the Wingfield Sculls (The English Amateur Sculling Championship). Those present, to commemorate the centenary of this race, were Iveagh, Guy Nickalls, Rev. W.S. Unwin, F.I. Pitman, Vivian Nickalls, J.L. Tann, T.D.A. Collet, H.D. Blackstaffe, D.Guye, J.C. Gardner, J. Beresford [Jr.], Rev. A.C. Dicker, C.W. Wise, and W.D. Kinnear. All are resplendent in ‘white tie’, which is a tailcoat, white waistcoat (vest) and dress shirt with a stiff bib front, high-standing wing collar and white bow tie. Even Kinnear and Blackstaffe, men much lower on the social scale than the rest of the group, are in the correct dress. They are all wearing their Wingfield Medals, each with a bar on the ribbon denoting the year(s) in which they won.” [Have a look on the right at the stylish Jack Beresford, Jr., and his seven bars for his Wingfields' victories between 1920-1926].

On this fascinating topic Tim continues, “Though taken in 1930, the picture is more illustrative of a formal gathering before the 1914-1918 War. The picture ‘KRC Dinner 1933’ [above] shows the mixture of ‘white tie’ and ‘black tie’ (a.k.a. ‘dinner jacket’ or ‘dinner suit’ or ‘tuxedo’) that would have been common in the inter war years. The dinner jacket had been invented in the 1870s by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII, 1901-1910) for informal dining at home. Its essence was a tailless jacket and soft shirt with a turned down collar and black bow tie. By the 1930s the Duke of Windsor (briefly King Edward VIII) and his set were wearing the more comfortable outfit in public and it began to replace the tailcoat. ('DOW' in 'DJ' on the right.) Since the 1939-1945 War, white tie is only seen on the most formal of state occasions. In the 1960s and 1970s it looked as though black tie would also drift into oblivion but, by the time I started to attend rowing club dinners in the mid 1980s, the ‘DJ’ was back and is now worn by the vast majority of men at formal evening functions. I do mean ‘evening’, only Americans and waiters wear black tie during the day. At Auriol Kensington, those of us with regatta blazers sometimes follow the Oxford and Cambridge custom of wearing them in place of the traditional jacket with our dinner suits. On the left is a picture of me in such a rig,” Tim concludes.

Tim, this was very entertaining. Thank you! Maybe time for you to start a blog on well-dressed oarsmen and oarswomen?