Page 41 - BBHAC Winter 2015-16 Gazette

Obituary
fixtures, run in mob matches,
help with activities and run at
the Norman Park Track, which
had then established itself as the
club’s main track and field base.
He was open to new ideas and
wanted the club very much to
project a positive, modern image
which belied its supposed old-
fashioned-ness. He emphasized
encouragement and integration
with the President as a focal
point for all progressive activity. crucial to its success and led to he commented in the forward
Even as President, having
reached an age when other club
members might well have hung
up their running shoes, Tony
could still be regarded as an
active athlete. In his year as Club to the Club’s most famous
President, he ran all the major
CC races, including the Club 10.
He was also a member of the
winning National Vets Over 50s
Cross Country Team.
In 1991 after his year of
Presidential office he
handed over to Gary Botley.
Coincidentally Gary was the
last Club visitor to Tony in his
farewell tour in March 2015.
Graham remarked afterwards
that this was probably the last
time he would see Tony. It was
a sad occasion as Tony really
didn’t recognise his visitor and
could not
communicate
in his
usual and
entertaining
way.
Then after
many years
association
with the club
39
Even as President Tony could still be regarded as an active athlete
he sadly left it in 1997 for very two priceless histories”. These
personal reasons which are best
left unmentioned. However in
2007 as a result of the death
of Sydney Wooderson and his
massive contribution to the
subsequent memorial service
he returned to the fold. His
support with the preparations
for the Memorial Service was
the offer of Life Membership
which he was delighted to
accept. The Service was
generally considered to be a
successful and fitting tribute
member and greatest ever
’Heathen. He rejoined having
been offered Life Membership
in 2008 and was presented with
his 50 year membership award
in 2010. Having lost a son he
and Christine presented the
Club with a trophy named after
that late son Robert Weeks-
Pearson.
Tony’s career was in teaching
and his academic abilities
were reflected in one of
his greatest achievements,
the production of the Club
History. A comment in the
1990 Club Gazette praised this
achievement: “We are, above
all, grateful to Tony for all the
work that has gone into our
were 1969 Centennial Club
History and the 1989 update.
This original undertaking was
done in collaboration with
D.K. Saunders and in defiance
of previously held opinions
that such a history could never
be written. But “for better or
worse this has been achieved”
to the first edition. This work
he believed was a history and
not a simple record of events
and performances. “We hope”
he said “that it will be of
interest not only to members
but to a wider public who may
see in our small affairs a vital
fragment of social history”.
Perhaps not so well known
was that he was also a novelist.
His novel ‘DODO’ contained
in the words of an observer
“a fundamental symbolism,
inescapable, indicating care
for, and championing of an
endangered species.” Under
his influence as President, and
at a time when Harrier clubs
were being looked on in the
running boom of the 1980s as
an anachronism, Blackheath
Harriers would be anything but
an endangered species.
Martyn Mitchell