1. How long have you been involved with Tiffin rowing? Since my son Tristan started rowing – must be nigh on 28 years! Robert Giles was the rowing master then and there was a strong tradition of parental support. There was no Dave at the time so we all chipped in to help with tidiness and maintenance
2. What boats did you use? There was a blue 8 at the time which worked well with a mixed crew. The 4+ called Associates was adapted for steering with or without a Cox.There is also a red single still on the racks – Samsung – that had been damaged and needed extensive repair. I worked on it at home and it survived another 20 years!
3. Did you row before Tiffin? No, but I was a fairly general sportsperson. Sailing, boxing and rugby. Watersports-wise I bought a National 12 sailing dinghy when I first joined the Army, repaired a clinker hulled Lymington 1 design in a garage in Winchester and later sailed 420s in the Gulf.
4. What about boxing and rugby? Boxing isn’t a permitted school sport nowadays but at the time it was significant. I was Captain of boxing at school and welterweight champion at Sandhurst: after that some common sense took over and I gave it up!
5. Rugby? I had to leave the Army due to a medical issue, which is no longer a problem, and took up a civil engineering career, initially in Winchester where I was designing for projects in the Gulf – some superseded, some still standing. I played rugby for Winchester for a couple of years and then went to Doha as a resident engineer. A group of us there decided to start a rugby club – the Doha Engineering Dept organised land, I organised the clubhouse and we started with an over 30s vs under 30s match. I was elected captain of the first Qatar Rugby Football Club and we travelled for matches to all of the Gulf states.
6. How come Tiffin? With coming back to the UK and starting a family, sports enthusiasm took a back seat. With the Tiffin Parents Rowing Club, as it was then, I was able to be both useful and energetic. On Sundays we would regularly take out the mixed 8, mentioned above, coached by Dave Baldwin,and occasionally enter local events. For fundraising we would run the Tiffin Head the week before KSBH and run car boot sales which included taking over the old Tiffin kitchen where the Sixth Form now is.
7. What about coaching? Carol Cornell took over as Head of Rowing after a somewhat difficult time with school funding. We had funds in the parents’ subs account which we thought worth spending on a coaching course, and Carol was supportive, so I, and later Godfrey Vosper, took it up. I live close to the river and coaching both seems to suit my temperament and provide a wider benefit to others.
8. You are also involved with Kingston Regatta. How did that come about? John Bigglestone, a Tiffin parent just ahead of my time, had joined KRC, had responsibility for setting the regatta course and enrolled TPRC to help. Over the years, as he stepped aside, I took on more of the role. It has helped fill gaps in the TSBC funding over time, but I am now at the stage of doing a similar thing to John and becoming a back seat driver rather than leader.
