Alan Watson's funeral service will be held at St. Peter's Church, Church Street, Sheringham at 12:45pm on Thursday 8th March, followed by cremation at St. Faith's Norwich at 2pm.
There is an obituary here.
I shall be there in my UL blazer to conform with the object of the service which is a celebration of his life. It occurred to me that there may be a demand for a bus or minibus from London (and pick up points en route) rather than all going independantly and that this would be a fitting oppurtunity to have a pint or three on the way back from London and reminisce about old times and see the old boy off in the mannner we were used to!
If you are interested - and time is short - you need to
1) let me know at this email or 020 8874 2013
2) forward this email to all the UL persons that you may know with a copy to me for liaison
If there is demand, I will set up a page similar to the one below for Jimmy Wallis - just send in the copy.
My first memory of Alan is one of the most vivid. I had just been "selected" to row for IC (sorry to do a PhD at Imperial) by John Levy. It was October 1969 and fresh over from Dublin I thought I would have a look at the UL trials, with no expectations as I had seen the year before UL win Grand and go to Mexico, the second viii trash one of the fastest DUBC viiis of recent years and the third viii (even with David Wilkes on board - smile- only joking) doing well in the Thames cup. Waty (OK I he did not like the nickname but that is how we all knew him) was on form. Tall, fit (he still went everywhere by bike - even Buckingham Palace), proud and by no means quietly spoken he was an arresting speaker. What he said was even better than the quality of the delivery..."If you want to row for UL and think you can have not only a social life (girlfriends etc.) and work, there is the door, please leave now. You can only do two of the three - row and work or row and socialise and we prefer the former."
I was hooked but did manage to make some really good life-long friends in the process!
Have you "hidden behind islands" only to see Alan disappearing up river in search of you?
Done the "Staines" trip to be told several times this is the last lock or its not much further round this bend?
or any other similar stories... we are waiting.
Chris
First message to come in on this
Chris,
Just to close the loop on your story, the first time Alan rowed at Henley was in the Thames 2nd VIII in the Thames Cup in 1947. Their cox described him as a gangly youth. That cox was John Levy.
Best regards,
MARTIN LEVY