Fellowship meeting

This was Mo Sadiq’s first full meeting as President, a fact he mentioned when opening the meeting. We remembered the Club members who had died since the start of the first lockdown.

There were seven of them: Tony Stubbings, Chris Burr, Dennis Fountain, Frank Tew, John Scammell, Eddie Cassels and Harry Hatcher. Keith Otter spoke briefly about each of them before inviting other members to share their memories.

Two of them, Tony Stubbings and Dennis Fountain, were keen golfers who always sat at the Club’s “golfing table” back in the days when we had enough golfers in the Club to fill it.

Tony was at one time President of Channels Golf Club and occasionally arranged for our Club to use its facilities. Francis Whitbread recalled queuing behind Tony at the Channels Club bar when someone else pushed Tony to the front and said to the barman “You’d better serve this man first, he’s the boss.” Tony was so self-effacing that the barman didn’t recognise him.

Dennis was sad when he was the last one left in the golfing table group, the rest having died or being no longer able to attend. After the death of Bill Partis in 2018 Dennis became our oldest member. He was already well into his nineties but still managed to look a lot healthier than most. He continued attending meetings until prevented from doing so by the first lockdown, during which he died. Always friendly and cheerful, he will be much missed.

Chris Burr was heavily involved in the local community. He was a Chartered Quantity Surveyor and played an important part in the planning when Farleigh Hospice’s new premises were being built. He was a trustee of the Abbeyfield Society in Chelmsford and took part in amateur dramatics.

Club members will remember him best, though, as our Jazz Supremo. As a jazz enthusiast he gave us a number of fascinating talks on the subject, accompanied by suitable recordings to illustrate his points. He also organised our Annual Jazz Concerts for fifteen years. The surplus from those acted as seed money for our Sahiwal Project, supporting girls’ schools in Pakistan.

We were sorry when increasing dementia prevented him coming to Club meetings. To be nearer to his son he moved to a nursing home on the south coast, where he died.

Frank Tew was a regular attender at our meetings and a keen supporter of our fund-raising efforts. Unfortunately very soon after he joined the Club his health started deteriorating, which prevented him playing the larger part in our projects than he might otherwise have done. Towards the end of his life he became too unwell to attend meetings.

John Scammell, a special needs teacher with a wide variety of interests and a large circle of friends, took to Rotary with enthusiasm. He is the only member within living memory to play a musical instrument as part of his Job Talk. He played the ukulele and was a member of a ukulele band. He often came to meetings in his band uniform.

John joined our Youth Service Committee and acted as our Santa at Hylands one year. As Chair of the Committee he was forging links with local schools and making plans for future activities when he unexpectedly died of a heart attack. He was 2nd Vice President and would have been an excellent President.

Eddie Cassels will be fondly remembered by members as a constant and friendly presence at Club meetings. He was President in 2012-13 and in 2014 became Secretary. All those who acted as President when he was Secretary have paid tribute to him.

He resigned as Secretary last November because of a recurrence of his cancer. We were pleased to welcome him back to meetings earlier this year but it was to prove only a temporary respite. He only able to attend two meetings this year before he died.

Harry Hatcher was President in 2001-2. As a National Serviceman he served in the Korean War, where he and his unit came under friendly fire from the Americans. He never forgave them!

In 2017 Harry gave us the Harry Hatcher Shield to be presented each year to the member judged by the other members to have made the greatest contribution to the Club, Rotary or the wider community.

Harry was a large man in every sense of the word and drove an equally large car. For many years he had problems with his legs and eventually had to stop driving. He would then attend Club meetings by getting lifts from other Club members or his son. Further deterioration in his health prevented him from doing even that and he died just before Easter.