Now I know at times that my spelling is a bit suspect but chairs is a deliberate pun on words as I'm referring to football club chairmen.
I'm casting my mind back quite a few years to when I worked for Norfolk Police. I remember having a meeting with Roger Munby and George (sorry I forget his surname). George worked for the Police and Roger was from an outside company we were doing work with (I forget exactly which).
I can't remember what we were talking about but it would have been some police pr initiative. I suddenly realised that we were all chairmen of football clubs. Roger was chair of Norwich City, George was chair of top local club Dereham Town and I was chair of quite lowly Hethersett Athletic.
I saw Roger Munby on a number of other occasions and found him easy to deal with and a very pleasant man. Before Saturday's match between Norwich and West Bromwich Albion there was a minute's silence in memory of Roger Munby who died recently. It did bring back a few memories.
George is still around although I don't know whether he is still chairman of Dereham. I handed over the mantle of Hethersett Athletic some years ago. I remember playing tennis quite regularly against George. I wonder if he still wields a racket.
I was also saddened to hear that Roger Harris has died (and this is another football story). Roger was a freelance photographer. I believe he was also an electrician. He used to take sports photos for me when I was a sports editor in Norfolk. Roger also had a very close connection with Norwich City, taking photographs for the match day programmes.
Roger was always happy, always smiling and brimming over with enthusiasm. I have a framed photograph in my study of jockey Lester Piggott that was taken by Roger. He kindly gave it to me and it's unique as Piggott is smiling.
Lester Piggott wasn't known for his smile or for frivolity of any kind. In other words he was a pretty serious man. I don't think he particularly liked photographers or film crews either and hated interviews as he had a speech impediment. So how did Roger get him to smile? Well apparently as he was about to take the photo, Roger stumbled backwards and almost fell over but still managed to get the shot.
And that reminds me of dear old Norman Taylor - who was photographer for the North Norfolk News and Eastern Daily Press at Cromer when I worked there in the 1970s. On one occasion Norman took a picture of somebody who should have been smiling (presumably because it was a good news story) but wasn't. The news editor pointed this out to Norman who replied with the classic phrase "It's his bloody teeth mate." That's a phrase I still use when I want to be light-hearted.
Norman was once taking a photograph of somebody whose house was in danger of disappearing over the cliff in North Norfolk. As he took a photo of the owner with his property behind him, he took a couple of steps backwards in order to get a better photo and promptly fell into a flower bed!
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On Saturday I popped down to our local youth club for a very pleasant photographic job for my next Hethersett Herald. They have created a very nice garden with a wooden seating complex at the back of the youth club.
This is another fine village community effort from those that have donated money to those that have volunteered and given their time, to those that have built the benches free of charge. Very soon there will also be another bench in place to the memory of Rosie Hubbard who was a tireless worker for the youth club, the parish church and many many more village groups and organisations.
Many people remember Rosie for her regular bike rides round the village that took forever as she stopped to chat to everyone. She was one of the most positive people I have ever had the joy to know and she is still greatly missed.
Today's photographs are of the ribbon cutting to open the new garden at the youth club.