Rover History 1945 - 1956

1952- "Two Honours for the 59th"

Very little of note took place during '52 insofar as the internal affairs of the Crew were concerned. Though we did have one new member - Bryan Douglas, who was with the Blind School. Though for some reason or other he very quickly faded from our midst. Soon after this Chris joined. [Pencil note - Tha's wrong tha knows!]

During this year Mick became the Assistant Treasurer, and Maurice took over as Quartermaster, and for the first time we elected a Catering Officer, and Dave Parkin filled this post. Ray Neil began his term of office as Rover Mate.

In the wider field of Rovering however, we had the honour of supplying a delegate for the National Conference and for supplying the Rover to represent Sheffield at the National St. Georges Day Parade at Windsor, Paul was the delegate to the Conference and Terry was the representative to Windsor.

Apart from this brief resume very little took place in this year,towards the end of it we seemed to hit a 'doldrum', and activity was carried on but only of a very minor nature.
In this 'doldrum' state, we drifted towards 1953.

1953 - "The Big Split"

Following on from the end of the previous year, the drifting became more and more apparent, either the chaps couldn't, or wouldn't, care less, and it was eventually realised that something had to be done. A voice rose above the apathy that prevailed and said "all we are doing is becoming a club. therefore most of us would be better off as a Branch of the BP Guild".

Thus spoke Keith,and we set about seriously considering This aspect and so on the 11th of May, six members broke away to form a branch of the Guild. These were Keith, Rex, Ray, Dennis, Dave and Mick. Obviously this could not take place without having effect on the Crew as a whole, and, for a time we were all topsy-turvy, but like the other difficulties that we had had to overcome in the past, we began to surmount this one. [Pencil note - This is when Chris came].

On the 18th of May, we sat down to completely reorganise what was left of the Crew. Peter A valiantly took over as Mate and as such kept us together through this time until we had found our feet again. At the AGM, which followed in the June, Chippy was made Assistant Secretary, Stuart was appointed Treasurer's Assistant and Chris became Forces Correspondent.

A few members of the Crew had taken part in or helped with the Pageant "Send Her Victorious" at the City Hall in the April, and we also had had a very good turn out for the St George's Day Parade. So although we had internal troubles, we at least did not let the outside know of them.

To help compensate the loss of the six previously mentioned, five new members joined our ranks, they were Trevor, Johnnie Rotheram, Spud, Colin and Jim Froggat.
Now we thought we are nearly back to normal, but, we were speaking too soon, because before the year ended we lost Alan Smith who was away to Kenya, Alan Warwick who moved to Dewsbury and Dick, who resigned because he "did not like the financial policy that the Crew had adopted".

Even so, out of all this chaos, we did manage to gain second place in the Lumley Robinson Trophy which I think was very good in the circumstances.

The Den was completely redecorated during the year and a lot of hard work was put in to make it look really worthwhile.

After Dick's resignation, Stuart was appointed as Treasurer and became a signatory for the monies of the Crew. Ray was made his assistant. Soon after this a veto on spending was announced owing to our delicate financial position.

So to the ending of a very momentous year, where I think we had had everything but the kitchen sink thrown in at us, and regardless of all this we had at least 'plugged the hole; and had started to make the ship seaworthy once more.

Finally to 1954.

[Pencil note - That year we painted the beams cream - painting took nine weeks, but the argument beforehand took seven weeks].