İ.RAMİ AYDIN e-mail : Rami.Aydin@btinternet.com
41
Broadleas Park Web : www.rami.aydin.btinternet.co.uk
Devizes, Wilts. SN10 5JA
ENGLAND
Tel: ..-44-(0)1380-722719
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A Brief History of Devizes
Bridge Club
By Rami Aydin
A short story of the club’s formation from
what I remember and what I have found among my notes.
As I have been a proud member of this club
since 1983 and being one of its founders, I would like to tell you briefly of
its history and introduce to you some old and some new members who have put a lot
of effort into it.
Over the years it has been very pleasing
and satisfying to see the club improving, growing and flourishing with good
quality people, with good quality Bridge in a friendly, relaxing atmosphere and
attracting people from places quite far away.
First of all I would like to thank all
members of the old and new committees and all the of the club members for their
continuing support, effort and work in this success story.
Twenty years ago we used to play at the
Devizes Crown Centre which was then affiliated to the EBU. However, after a
Duplicate Session one day in October 1983, the Bridge players were told that
the Crown Centre management had decided that they would no longer allow
Duplicate Bridge to be played in the Centre. The brief reasons given were:
On 8th Novenber 1983, a meeting was held at
the home of Mr & Mrs Colley (Jacqueline); those present were Mr
Phil Philbrick (Chairman of the Dorset & Wilts Association), Mr
& Mrs Colley, Mr Elliot Herrod-Taylor & Mrs Denise
Herrod-Taylor, Mrs Marion Bull, Mrs Dorothy Jones,
Mrs Betty Ingledew, Mr William H. Cross (Bill) and
myself. It was decided to form a new club that would be recognised by and
affiliated to the EBU, a committee was formed and the club was named Devizes
Bridge Club.
Almost everybody put effort into the
development of the Club. In the very first days, Mr Phil Philbrick
gave us some tables, some score sheets, cards etc. Sometimes we played at the
home of Mr & Mrs Colley and lots of times at the home of Mr
& Mrs Herrod-Taylor (they moved to Devon later on). Jacqueline
(Jacky) Colley is the lady who had Llamas in her garden. During
the first year of the Club, several activities and Bridge sessions took place.
The membership steadily increased and members played in National and County
events.
After having permanently increased the
number of members and having collected some money in the kitty, we felt that we
could now afford to rent a place to play and we played in the rooms of local
pubs. Then for a long time we played in the Roundway Hospital big theatre/activities
room until the hospital closed down.
By the time of the AGM on 14th Novenber
1984, the membership had reached about 80 and the Club was able to carry
forward funds of £441.34 into the next year. It was decided that in addition to
Wednesday night, a second session would be held at the Nursteed Centre on
Friday evenings for a trial period of 3 months; this then became permanent. The
club had quickly become a success.
The score sheets and Master Points were
calculated by Jacky Colley for some time, then I took over these
jobs when they moved to France and I continued as Master Points Secretary until
the 1988 AGM when the job transferred to Mrs Iva Jenkins who
continued in the role for a long, long time.
I remember one day that Jacky Colley
got really cross about something, talking in a loud and angry voice. The person
next to me leaned over and whispered in my ear "Never mind"
she said, "she is foreign" (!!?). Whenever I remember this, it
still makes me laugh; as if I were not.
Dear Bill Cross has been doing/carrying
the burden of Club Chairman from the very early days, up to the present day,
with the help of all the other committee members, especially the Club Secretary
Dorothy Jones at the beginning and later on Arthur Mayes
until he decided not to continue due to health reasons. Arthur had been in
contact with the "Devizes Gazette and Herald" and was supplying them
with the Club activity details which greatly helped to publicise the Club.
Unfortunately, Dorothy Jones
can no longer play because of health reasons, Marion Bull and Betty
Ingledew have both sadly died. Possibly all of you will remember Alec
Pirrie who did a lot for the club, including Directing for long time
until his death.
One of the precious and active members of
the Club, Jack Brock, also died recently. A family friend as well
as a partner, Jack was a gentle, good hearted person and worked really hard for
the club. I must admit here and now that I always had a problem understanding
his fast talking and muffled words and often had to ask him to repeat several
times.
Another very active and enthusiastic member
who has since died was Betty Dixon who taught bridge to several
people in Devizes. It was she who first told me about the Bridge sessions at
the Crown Centre and I partnered her for some time.
One of the founders, Betty Ingledew,
was a very keen and good player and was also my partner until her death in
1990. She was, God bless her, frightened of playing in NoTrumps; she hated it
and used to bid in such a way that I was forced to bid NT at the end. I believe
she came from South Africa but we never talked about the situation there and so
I don’t know about her beliefs but she liked and respected me for some reason.
I used to visit her at her little house and she used to make tea/coffee for me
and always provided some biscuits.
Another dear person is Hardy Clarkson.
I have always admired his kindness and gentleness. He moved to Darlington but
still keeps in touch; I called him "Gentle Giant". Hardy was one of
the oldest and most devoted Bridge enthusiasts in this area and spent a lot of
his time and effort to establish and develop Duplicate Bridge in the
area and to increase the number of players; even long before our Bridge Club
was formed and afterwards of course. If one day a whole history of Bridge in
Wiltshire is written, he should be given one of the top places in the honours
lists.
The late Mrs Nell Williams
was one of the sweetest, kindest and gentlest ladies in the club; I loved and
respected her. She gave enormous moral and spiritual support to the club and
donated some money as well as a Cup. She has a very special place in my
memories just like the late Millie Drake has. Millie was another
sweet, cheerful and always "smiling face" person. Although I never
said or asked her to do this, she sold several of my books to her friends,
relatives and her circle. She was a person who almost always had critical
and/or high cards and so, whenever I was playing against her and needed to
search, to finesse, or to find some important/critical cards, I used to make
her hand my target. Believe it or not, this tactic used to work I think 70-80%
of the time.
Having mentioned the Cup donated by Nell
Williams, I thought I should say something about the three Cups in our
Club history. I hope I am not wrong with the dates.
If I am not wrong we played for the Herrod-Taylor
Cup and the Nell Williams Cup until 1997-1998, with some
missing years. The Aydin Celebration Cup was played for only 3
times until February 2000. I designed some nice Diploma Certificates for
each cup to be presented to the winners so that they could be hung in their
homes proudly.
The whole idea of these cups was that they
could bring another lively event, a new attraction to the club and the winners
would be able to display them proudly in their homes. I had suggested that
members didn’t necessarily need to come as partners, they could come even as
singles and I would fill the missing person’s place with no expectation of the
cup and also that we could apply some sort of handicap so that almost everybody
could have a chance of taking home a cup. I wish that somebody else had
mentioned the cups because of my personal involvement. Let’s forget my cup, but
I feel sorry when I remember Herrod-Taylor and Nell
Williams. We shouldn’t only think about Master Points, published
anyway, but also give the opportunity to everybody in the club to win
something.
Now let’s come to today’s club. At the
moment the "Ruling Committee" is like this:
Ken Walsby
is one of the latest additions to the club and has set up a nice Website to
publish the results the next morning including the travellers so that we can
compare our results with others. He, along with Philip Bennett
represents our club in the Wiltshire Contract Bridge Association. This
story has been written in response to Ken’s request for contributions for the
Website; how could I refuse?
Rami
Aydin
1st October 2003
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