THCCClubHistory

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Some time at the beginning of the 1980s there began the Shadwell Basin Youth Club and an array of other clubs, such as the Fishing Club, the Sailing Club and the Sub-Aqua Club. These were started under a series of initiatives from the LDDC (London Docklands Development Corporation) which had control of all the dockland area of East London. The structure they set up consisted at the top of the ELMV (East London Marine Venture), then other activity centres including SBC (Shadwell Basin Centre) as it then was, and then the third tier being the above Shadwell entities, including later on the Tower Hamlets Canoe Club. Peter Wade was chairman of SBC, and he also ran a vessel, the "Ellen Elizabeth", which took young people from Shadwell up to Richmond, and perhaps beyond, and which was normally moored off Shadwell. I never went aboard the "Ellen Elizabeth" so I do not know how she was fitted out.

I had met Mike Thomas, now the Director of the Shadwell Basin centre, some years before, in 1976 in fact, when Mike was the Borough Youth Officer. I had just been asked to be Treasurer of a Sea Scout Troop, and found that my duties included attending the monthly meetings of the Tower Hamlets Water Consortium, under Mike's chairmanship. What we did was to allocate money made available by the Borough, to various youth activities using the water. Peter Wade attended in the name of Shadwell, and there were several other regular claimants. The general principle was that if, say, money for tents had been allocated, then tents were placed in the keeping of whoever had asked for them, but were supposed to be available for the use of any other members of the consortium. On the whole I did not think that this worked very well. For instance if you asked for tents you were quite likely to be passed, not the new tents the money had been allocated for, but the rotten old ones that had been replaced. The new tents went to the group that could claim the soonest need, rather than the applicant. On the other hand the evening was quite well spent among friends, and one was kept in touch with what was going on with aquatic youth activities.

It was a year later that I began to get involved with kayaking, though I had open-canoed with my father, and also with various school friends, since I was born. I was in my little yacht, looking on at the activities near the old Chatham Dockyard, of a group of young girls. "You are lucky to be so young, and to be able to do all that!" I exclaimed to them. "How old are you?" was the reply. "Forty-three," I answered. "You are not too old," they said: "we will teach you." And they did. They were the Sea Rangers from Enfield, and in fact there was a tie-in, as they were associated with the DSP (the Dockland Scout Project). This had formerly been the Discovery Scout Project, which had been based on the Training Ship Discovery, Captain Scott's ship that had taken him on his attempt to get to the South Pole. The "Discovery" had been moored on the Thames Embankment near Charing Cross. Generations of Sea Scouts, of whom very many years before I had been one, had trained on board her, and so when the "Discovery" was taken back by the Admiralty in 1978 or 1979 for refitting, I was foremost in finding a new home in the Docks for the DSP. I also did the fund-raising for the DSP so that they could buy a vessel to replace the "Discovery" and provide accommodation. The vessel we found was a former light-house service vessel with plenty of accommodation on board. As this was 1979 I had one of the first generation of micros with sufficient size, speed and power to do the accounts of the very large global corporation for which I worked. As there were no commercial name-and-address systems in those days, nor indeed text editors, I had to write not only these, but also some other surprisingly basic programs, not too hard with my computing experience by then stretching back nearly a quarter of a century. Anyhow it all worked successfully, and I got my reward which was to be taken up from One to Three Star, then Canoeing Safety Test, Inland Proficiency (now called Four Star), and Senior Instructor Training, by these delightful young ladies.

It was by now 1983, and I took religious vows to serve Kayaking as long as I was able. Although there was already the Tower Hamlets Canoe Club, it was basically intended for people who had previously been members of the Shadwell Youth Club. This was a volunteer organisation with very few, if any, paid staff. The majority of the staff had other jobs and worked with the Youth Club, and also THCC, on a voluntary basis, much as Scout Leaders do. The main ethic of THCC was to train up a number of former members of the Youth Club so that they would become Instructors or Senior Instructors, and then, as volunteers, be able to take charge of the youngsters still in the Youth Club.

I spent 1984 teaching at Calshot, the Kayaking Centre of Excellence, just inside Southampton Water, but in clear view of the Isle of Wight. I was very lucky to get this appointment. It entailed being there every other weekend from March to October in that year. Doing this I made a number of very good friends. At the assessment for Senior Instructor I was "referred", that is to say I had to perform some very acceptable tasks before I could get the award. These were accomplished by March 1985, whereupon I joined Tower Hamlets Canoe Club as a Senior Instructor.

There were really three orders of member - the serious few who paddled all round the year, and who were already, or were aspiring to be, Senior Instructors; the Shadwell staff who paddled with us, numbering three or four; and in summer a very large number of people, mainly nurses from the London Hospital, who could number as many as eighty. The actual buildings at Shadwell have been changed very greatly. When I joined there were four houses like the two now used by the Director, and by Roz, the key-keeper (whose sons had been in the Youth Club in the late 1970s and early 1980s). I only really remember one of these houses, and perhaps one was for males and the other for females. Anyway, the one I used had its changing-room and showers on the upper floor. As a consequence the floors had got wet and had rotted through, so demolition was a reasonable solution. Without a building any more we moved across the road onto the wide expanse of empty space that is still there, where we used a number of unsightly containers for storage of boats, for changing-rooms, for a meeting room and for admin. These were not very secure and there were a number of thefts, including a spectacular one when a visiting windsurfing instructor (actually the Head of Herts Young mariners at Cheshunt), had his trousers stolen from his car. Months later these were recovered when the thief was arrested for something else, and the police raided his flat: he was an out-of-work waiter living not too far away.

It was at about this time that things began to change with THCC. Many, if not most, of the original members had moved on, and, possibly shy of the new blood coming into THCC, the Youth Club members no longer joined us. The Director of Shadwell, Mike Thomas's predecessor, one day made a surprise ruling that from then on no Shadwell Basin Instructor was to work with us. I am not sure what he thought were the reasons for this, but it may have been insurance, as it would have been hard to tell whether a person was working for him or for us if there was an injury. Luckily, two at least of the instructors ignored the ruling, and continued to paddle with us on the same basis as the rest of us, namely as paid-up members of THCC. One of these was a member of the British Surf team, who eventually married the Shadwell Instructor Jan Coughlin.

There were some good traditions. Every year there is an open weekend at Llangollen on the Dee. At that time this would be in November or December. There is also a fixed weekend of paddling there run by the Welsh Canoeing Association in mid-November. The weekend I'm talking about was known as the Mike Jones Weekend, and was highly organised. It was in memory of Mike Jones who had been killed on one of the early descents of the Dudh Khosi, which runs down Mount Everest. Our people used to all go up there, and try to improve on their previous year's performance. For instance if a person had been defeated by the Town Falls in the previous year his or her ambition for the current year was to get through them without capsizing. Another target was to survive the Serpent's Tail, a zig-zag rapid cutting close under the cliffs on the right, and passing an impressive collection of rock ledges on the left. There were also longer trips available from upstream.

Later this event was moved to the Upper Tyne at Hexham, and again members of the Club drive up there regularly, though I have noticed less enthusiasm for this rather excellent weekend these days. I think this may be because so many people use park'n'play boats rather than boats that will give you a good trip down a long series of rapids.

At the end of the 1980s I did five or six years as Chairman. In this period I used to try to arrange something for nearly every weekend. This could be surfing, a weir trip to West London, a nice river paddle somewhere not too far away, taking part in the Essex Canoeing Association Winter Series of races, or a sea trip.

At this very time I had been asked to start and run an annual camp in the Outer Hebrides, for local youngsters and for visitors from mainland Scotland. The first year was a trial, with just me instructing, and a handful of locals (with one of whom, now in his thirties, I spent time just a fortnight ago). But for the next year, and often after that, I took THCC members up there and used them as instructors, as well as training them for Sea proficiency (now called Four Star).

We also sometimes paddled on Tuesday nights on one or other of the two local weirs, namely on a broken lock on the Roding at Barking, and on the weir at Lea Bridge Road, which introduced special problems of its own, for its flow was not stable. We always paddled on Friday nights in the swimming pool in a local school, but one day the manager of that school's youth club rang me to say that he had to award the Friday evening time slot to a Chinese youth club, as this would boost his club's image for assisting ethnic groups.

We also used to paddle on Saturday mornings, early, if we weren't doing anything else, at Tiller Road Baths on the Isle of Dogs, where there was a collection of BATs owned by the Borough.

From March 1983 up to quite recently there were ten meetings a year in a pub just near London Bridge, of a Club called the River Rats. Here you could hear all about the latest adventures of young kayakers, and sometimes meet people who were doing most adventurous things in other sports. Although this was on Tuesday nights some of us used to meet a little earlier on these evenings for our paddle then drive the short distance to the meeting. I think if you are really interested in canoeing you would not fail to go to a meeting such as this if it was provided on your doorstep. For various reasons, after twenty years the club moved to another venue, where not enough people could get to it, and it closed down. This year however it has restarted on the West Reservoir, not too far from here. It is on the first Wednesday of the month. I could not get to the opening meet due to a previous arrangement, but I have been to the subsequent ones, and never a member of THCC have I seen there, despite the lecturer at the last one being a former Shadwell Instructor, and a very good lecture too, one of the very best, about how he and two others canoed right round Britain in eighty days.

One day in the late Eighties we got told that our Rep on the Shadwell Basin Committee had not come to a meeting for years, and that if this was to continue we would be shut down without further warning. I must say I was completely unprepared for this, but I did the only thing I possibly could do, which was to attend every monthly meeting thereafter, for a period of years, till other people could be found to take on the task.

One reason for wanting us at these meetings is that periodically Shadwell used to organise Fun Days. Sometimes we were required to provide hands so that a grand-stand could be rigged before the event, and de-rigged after it. There would be wonderful stalls, for instance one year there was a seller of Chinese paintings, and I bought a lovely one there. There were Dragon Boat races, and this in fact was the main series of events. The participants would need helping into and out of their boats, and this would be done by THCC members. There was also lifeguarding to be done on the water. All very good fun. I can't quite make out why these events don't seem to be happening these days. I don't think Shadwell made much profit doing this.

In the early days of THCC we always seemed to have difficulty with our Treasurers. We would all pay our annual subs at the AGM in April, but quite often the Treasurer would never take these cheques to the bank. I remember one year there was a newly appointed Treasurer, an Irishman called "Paddy", what else. After he had been in office about a week he announced that all the old cheques had been paid in. On being asked how this had been achieved when they were all out of date, he merely replied, "I just changed the dates on them." There were also Treasurers who never seemed to keep accounts, but it always worked out in the long run, and we were always able to pay Shadwell its annual fee. To be honest it is not a good idea to open up cans of worms. But one of our very best Treasurers was Geoff Fellows, and one day a member accused him, not of embezzlement, but of using his own bank account for the Club's money. His accounts were faultless. But he took offence, and refused to be Treasurer any more, while his accuser, annoyed by the way the other members took his accusations, took away his boat the following week, and has not paddled with us since. By the way, he is the person we sometimes refer to in Club lore as "Mr. Angry."

I was followed as Chairman by a very young member, and I thought some of his actions were a bit dangerous, so for a year in the early 1990s I did not paddle with the club, since as Senior Instructor I was liable for anything that went wrong, no matter who was in charge on the water at the time. When I came back it went into a long period of little overall change, which only ended when I wrote a website for the Club, which informed the world that we were there, and would welcome new members. The recent history of the Club really starts at that point, and as that is on-going we will leave this Early History of the Club.

Nick Hodson, Senior Instructor Sea, Inland and Open Canoe.

Note: For those who do not know it a Senior Instructor is a somewhat higher grade than what is now known as a Coach Level Three, as it is a Club Management Award, as well as an Instructing one. For this reason it was always said that you never really started your training as an SI until you actually were one, and had to deal with Club problems.