Page 16 - PBCOctober2018

Pickwick Bicycle Club Magazine Volume 15 No.2 October 2018 @16

Apologies had been received from the President, Samuel Pickwick (Aidan Hegarty). In
attendance were four Past Presidents, Mr Brooks (Michael Radford), Jack Martin (John
Mist), Bullman (Brian Vandervilt) and Alfred Jingle (Ron Beale); together with Mr Tuckle
(Roger Gibbons), Mr Smithie (Gino Goddard), and guest Doug Cannings, a VP of The Kenton
Road Club.

In accordance with the club tradition, the members wore their soubriquet badges
inverted. Mr Brooks laid a wreath on the grave stone; Jack Martin read an extract from
Joseph Atto's will insofar as it related to the Club, and in particular the terms of a bequest
in the sum of £1000, to fund the expense of an annual toast to be known as “Past President
Joseph Atto’s Toast of Prosperity to the Pickwick Bicycle Club”, which toast continues to
this day.

There were a few moments of quiet contemplation,
some pondering as to the current value of £1000
in 1918 and the rather poor condition of the
gravestone and whether the club might explore
the possibility of some modest remedial work.
With a hearty three cheers for the life of our
eminent Past President, our ceremony concluded,
and we adjourned to a local hostelry for
refreshment.

Mr Tuckle proposed a toast to the “Immortal Memory of Mr.
Samuel Pickwick and the Pickwick Bicycle Club”, and as ever when
members meet, those present turned their attention to the objects
of our club, as settled in 1870, and a happy hour or so was spent in
“Dickensian fellowship and the Pickwickian art of being happy by
communicating happiness”. The time passed all too quickly, and with
some reluctance the members went their separate ways but safe in
the knowledge that one of the greats of the PBC had been properly
remembered.

Jack Martin

{Photographs were taken by Bullman. (Alfred Jingle was absent by then)}