News & Events
Roy Ellison
29th November 2024
Roy Ellison, 1933–2024
It is with sadness we record the death of Roy Ellison at the age of 91 on Saturday 23 November following a short illness.
Roy joined Cygnet in the early 1960s (his application form has long since gone astray) and counted Mike Arnold-Gilliat, Colin Dominy, Len Huggett, Peter Jeffs, Lawrence McVeigh and Peter Roche among his contemporaries.
The 1960s were a lean time for Cygnet and silverware was sparse. Nonetheless, Roy and his generation were no strangers to adversity, having been among the last to do National Service, and he and his contemporaries kept the club going through this lacklustre era when Cygnet found it hard to boat competitive crews.
Roy’s first love was football: a gifted amateur, he had honed his talents while serving in the RAF in the Far East. As an ex-national serviceman, he came to rowing relatively late: aged thirty something, he would have been classed as a veteran. However, his innate strength and agility stood him in good stead and he soon acclimatised to life on the water.
Lawrence McVeigh, a lifelong friend, recalls I think he joined Cygnet in 63 or 64 as I raced with him, Mick Clifford and Jimmy Dunlop. We won Novice Fours at Peterborough in 1963 or 64. Hamstrung by a lack of new members and poor equipment, it would be some time before Roy ascended through the ranks to ‘junior’ and ‘junior-senior’. Still, there was no shortage of in-house events to keep him occupied.
Business houses and public sector rowing were in their element in the 1960s. Scratch Vllls events, the forerunner of the Business Houses Head, were regular features of the rowing calendar, along with private matches against Oxford and Cambridge colleges and the Armed Forces. As an active committee member, Roy played his part in organising these in-house contests, not to mention addressing the ever present concern of fund raising. His legacy lives on as one of the team who successfully launched the then 200 Club in 1969.
Norman Cowling, one of the new intake of graduates in the late 1960s, recalls Roy as a great club member, down to earth and usually wise cracking. Roy was strong and someone you enjoyed rowing with - a vital sort of club man who would turn out in any crew in any seat, someone we looked up to and relied upon.
Patience was rewarded in the fullness of time. Thus, in 1969 he rowed in an Vlll (pictured with Roy at four) that won ‘juniors’ at Chiswick and Putney Town before competing in ‘junior senior’ class at Richmond, Kingston, Staines and Barnes & Mortlake. While silverware narrowly eluded them at the latter events, the message was clear: Cygnet was no longer in the doldrums.
In 1972, club fund raising received a shot in the arm when Cygnet was invited to do a waterborne publicity stunt for Ind Coope Brewery extolling the virtues of Double Diamond: I’m only here for the beer….it’s DD. As Roy Alder, the bow man in the eight which took part, recalls, Roy was one of the fortunate four who appeared on the advertising hoarding, rowing at three.
The poster lives on in the club’s annals and for many years a larger than life version adorned a wall in our sister club Rudergesellshaft Benrath, a relationship that was forged during Roy’s era. Indeed, Roy was one of the party that made the second club visit to Benrath in 1972, in the wake of the inaugural visit in 1965. These were pioneering times.
Stardom had its place, but for Roy the best was yet to come. In 1973, together with Messrs Huggett, Jeffs and Roche, he won a veteran IVs event at Vesta International Veterans Regatta beating Barclays Bank and Frankfurt, Germany. It was a fitting finale to his competitive rowing career and an especially gratifying win for him and Jeffs, a fellow footballer turned rower.
In later years, Roy continued to make appearances at Old Blades on Henley Friday, as well as the ‘old hands’ winter gatherings at Leander Club and the Civil Service Club. Always cheerful, he never missed an opportunity to liven up the proceedings with the odd wise crack.
Roy is survived by Julia, his spouse of more than half a century, son James, daughter Sarah and a multitude of grandchildren. His funeral will take place at 16.30 on 6 December at Loughborough Crematorium.
With thanks to Lawrence McVeigh, Norman Cowling, Roy Alder and Richard du Parcq
Paul Rawkins, 28 November 2024
Captain's update, 25th November
25th November 2024
Morning all,
It has been a busy few weeks since I last did an update but here are the main things to update on:
Racees.
It was disappointing that the fours head races this weekend were cancelled, but definitely the right decision. Our focus will now shift to the head races after Christmas, and in particular the head of the river race on 22 March. I’m hopeful that we can get two eights out for this- and will base the selection based on the training that has been done, the scores achieved, and the technical progress.Training.
We continue to see real improvements across the board. Our consistently full shed for weights is paying dividends, and erg scores are continuing to improve- as shown by everyone improving their 5k scores. We will look to do one more erg test before Christmas - details shortly.On the water, two things to update on. First, for those with relatively less experience- whether on the LTR this year or last, or just without experience of small boats- please do sign up to the sessions with Simon at the weekend. We have bought special floats (essentially stabilisers) for single sculling. I can’t recommend this highly enough- you improve your technical skills far quicker in a small boat.
For those with more experience, we’ve now rigged up two of the boats as pairs, and two as doubles- with the intention of doing more battle paddling between now and Christmas.
For the water sessions, safety is paramount at this time of year- and so please do accept my apologies if there are any last minute change of plans!
Coaching.
Just so you are all aware, Wes is going back to spend the next few weeks with his family and will be back after Christmas. But fear not, he will send me the programme for weights and ergs, and Simon will be with us for some of the water sessions.
Christmas social.
Hopefully you’ve all seen the email from Charles with the latest social info. Please do sign up!Think that is everything, but please do drop me a line if you have any questions!
Thanks, DomCaptain's update, 1st November
1st November 2024
Morning all,
Hope you’ve all had a good week. Hopefully nothing scary in this post Halloween update:Upcoming races. You’ll have seen that I sent around the provisional crews for Vet 4’s and 4’s Head later this month. These were based on the recent training records – well done to those selected. They are provisional still on confirmation from the organisers (these races are over subscribed so they do have to cut a few – the tideway ticketmaster!), but I also want to make clear that they can change – we need people signing up and coming down so that they are not scratch crews on the day. Lots of people are working hard and want your seat!
Upcoming erg test. On this note, we will do our November progress test – a 5k free rate – to see how the training has paid off in the past month. It also gives some of our new LTR graduates a great chance to benchmark themselves in the squad. I’ve been really impressed with some of erg scores recently- so make sure you are there at 7pm on Wednesday. Please sign up on fitclub so that if necessary, we can stagger the use of the ergs.
Safety. I’ve previously written about the safety. Unfortunately I saw multiple instances last weekend of bad practice- all related to getting in and out of boats. First, speed is vital during the winter – so please do not hang around – from putting the boat on the water, you should be kicking off in less than a minute. Second, there was an instance of stepping on the bottom of the boat which could have put a hole in the boat and left those still in there in trouble. Despite being told by multiple senior members of the squad, the individual persisted. If I see this again, water sessions will have to be limited. If you are not sure, please do just ask me or other experienced oarsmen.
Social. Thanks to Charles, we will be doing a club fireworks on the 9th Nov – please do come along to celebrate the time when some bloke from Yorkshire tried to cause havoc in Westminster (how I got a job in the civil service is beyond me).
Charity. Finally, we have had contact through the website from a former member asking for a bit of help with some fund raising. All information is on the website- do please consider it as looks like it will help your erg scores and also, more importantly, raise some much needed funds for MND research. https://www.cygnet-rc.org.uk/article-all_in_a_good_cause8.html
Onwards,
Dom
