Willesden CC was recently contacted by Gill and Steve, daughter and son-in-law of W.G. (Bill) Nash who was secretary of the club just before World War II and also a holder of a club tandem record.
Bill had kept a small but fascinating collection of Willesden keepsakes and photos from that time and shortly after World War II. Bill was an all-rounder so his pictures show several aspects of the club. Click on pictures to see them full-size.
Poster for a 100 mile ride from the Brooklands Museum
Bill was born in 1920. It’s not known when he first joined the Willesden, but he must have been a member for a while to have been the honorary secretary for a major race at the age of 19, as he would be handling postal entries. The club address on the 100 mile race poster, 23 Talbot Rd, was his mother’s. It survived until 1980 when Talbot Rd was demolished for the Church End Estate. It was one of the last London streets where spacious terrace houses simply in need of updating were lost to jerry-built flats, which were in turn demolished around 20 years later.
Tandem record
Bill was stoker to clubmate J.A. (Jack) Wilks, the pilot. Together they rode a club record for the Club 1 mile Tandem Standing Start of 2m 2.4s. Date and location are not known, though it is likely to have been at either the Paddington or Herne Hill tracks.
W.G. Nash and J.A. Wilks on their tandem. 1939. (It’s uncertain that this was taken during the record ride.)
This compares to the UK record by the top Tandem riders of the era who held 10 world records at one time, Addiscombe’s E.V. Mills and W.G. Paul, at 1m 48.6s, set in 1937 and never bettered. To be only 12% off the world’s best was very creditable. The picture picks out Jack and Bill well but makes it very difficult to see what’s around. If it’s the barrier of the track in the background, I could not connect it to pictures from the time of the two likely tracks. What looks like a ghostly figure riding a solo is intriguing.
The aftermath is puzzling. The current club record (on the website and confirmed in a 1981 club handbook) is the slower time of 2m 04s by P. Baulch and J. Blunsdon in 1956. The family remember Bill telling them in the 1980s that the then secretary of WIllesden CC had written saying the record had been broken. But there was nothing about this in Bill’s effects.
A lot of cycling
As well as involved in organising the 100 mile road race, Bill participated, for which he got a medal. The poster above, the 1940 dinner menu and the cutting all refer to this event.
Cutting about 1939 100 mile race
Bill Nash Medals – 100 Mile Medal with Time on Left
Other medals and a pin
Bicycle polo was popular. Jack Wilks was polo captain. Bill is on the far left of the picture as you look at it.
Willesden Bicycle Polo Team, Bill Nash on Left
Club rides were a central feature of club life and the picture shows ice-cream being consumed outside a shop/cafe called Sherwood’s. There is a CTC sign on the side, so it could probably be located using a CTC Handbook from that period. There is one in the CTC Archive at Warwick University. Club rides started from Willesden then, and frequently went North or North-East into Hertfordshire, so it may be somewhere present day club members don’t go much.
Ice cream outside a cyclist’s cafe
The other cafe photo looks like Northern France or maybe Flanders. Architecture and the lattice utility pole to the left of the building both point to this. To the right of the door is a sign with a Celtic Cross. At that time the cross was used by a Catholic French scouting organisation called the Cadets: not definitive but possibly corroborating. And is the beret on the head of the rider with glasses a souvenir? The photo of the three eating a snack by a large gate looks very much like it’s from the same trip, with the gate not looking very English.
Continental Cafe
Snack
Social
Willesden had a social side then too. As the amateur dramatics picture shows (Bill highlighted by the red dot.) No social secretary has suggested Am Dram since I became a member, but they look like they were having fun, so maybe we should give it a go. Note the smokers!
Amateur Dramatics
WWII and Dinner
As always, food is important for cyclists. Two annual dinner menus survived. The 1940 dinner looks like it was pretty lavish: chicken was a luxury dish and there was no veggie option. Rationing of a few items had started on January 8th, but not yet of the food offered.
1940 Dinner Menu Front
1940 Dinner Menu, Page 2 and 3
1940 Dinner Menu, Centrefold
1940 Dinner Menu Page 6
1940 Dinner Menu, Back
Bill joined the army and went to Burma to build roads and bridges for the allies. He returned to Britain in late 1945, in time for the 1946 Dinner. Again he passed his menu around for signing. You can see the request to return it at the top of the front page. To the left it was signed by M(Meg) Lindridge who later married Bill.
In 1946 rationing was very much in full swing and the meal was much plainer. 1940’s dinner was in conjunction with Harlesden Ramblers and 1946 not.
1946 Dinner Meu, Outside
1946 Dinner Menu, Inside
While this was the start of the golden age of Willesden cycling, it’s uncertain whether Bill rode at all after returning from Burma.
Life after Willesden
The family are pretty confident that Bill did not cycle after moving to Southampton, and that he focused on gaining his building qualifications. He settled in the city, became a lecturer at Southampton Technical College, and rose to be Head of the Building and Construction Department. In the 1960s and 70s he wrote and updated a series of books, Brickwork 1, 2 and 3. These became standard texts here and in parts of the Commonwealth, and supplemented his teaching salary sufficiently to buy a new car every three years.
Textbooks written by Bill
Bill retired in 1980, and became a keen bowls player. Spurred on by his two grandsons, he also regained his past interest in sea fishing. He died of Leukaemia in 1996, aged 76, leaving behind his wife, Meg, and their two daughters, Barbara and Gill. Meg died in 2016. Proving that cycling is in the genes, two grandsons are keen cyclists.
Gill and Steve would be keen to hear from anyone who is a relative of club members from Bill’s time. Use the email address on the club website and messages will be forwarded. Likewise email if you can correct or improve the article – for instance by identifying any club members.
The advert for the 100 mile race has featured in an earlier blog link. It’s particularly interesting for the contributed comment by the late Stan Vygus, who was probably the last member of the club who stayed engaged for life with Willesden CC all the way from before WWII when he was a boy. See https://www.willesdencyclingclub.co.uk/wcc-at-brooklands-1939/
Some related pictures…
Talbot Rd in the sixties (the post says “around 1970”) – some great hair styling! https://www.facebook.com/groups/326064490813645/posts/2054650327955044/AtAbAbout the Abbey Hotel (1940 dinner):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/EalingHistory/posts/3351119815020407/
The Park Royal Hotel (1946 dinner), still standing as part of the Hampton Hotel near Hanger Lane Gyratory.
https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/6761762
