PRESIDENT Brian Ireland opened this week’s meeting with news of absent members.

Then, to some good natured heckling from the back row, he handed over to fellow member Steve Swarbrick who challenged us to “Name that song”.

Making excellent use of new technology, Steve began by playing the first few lines of sixteen songs which featured a girl’s name, and asked us to name her. He then played another sixteen, and asked us to identify the colour that was featured. Then it was songs that featured birds, followed by plants and flowers and finally places.

Throughout the hour long session, a great deal of nodding, foot-tapping, muttering and head scratching was noticeable. Amazingly, even the Philistines amongst us contributed fully. And not once did football or Europe feature in our conversations!

Eventually, the team of John Doyle, Gary Pugh, Jim Cox and Bob Young were declared the winners.

John Doyle proposed the vote of thanks and congratulated Steve and Grenville Burrows for an excellent presentation which had obviously taken hours of preparation. We all agreed and applauded enthusiastically.

This was yet another example of the intellectual challenges to which our members are subjected. We would like to encourage more men to join us at the Rowing Club every Thursday at 10am.

Today (7 July) we shall hear about the SS Great Britain followed on 14 July by a talk on the City of London. Do join us.

CHRIS DONOUGH