Ron Screech Memories

Ron worked at Harwell and played for the club from 1959 up until 1966, when he left for other employment. One of his highlights of playing for the then AERE Harwell, was the club tour to Gif sur Versailles, France. Prompted to dust off his old photos by HOB emails, he also found pictures of AERE Inter-Divisional 7's competitions of that era and personal tribute in an old AERE News.

In his photos you'll see relatively youthful pictures other old favourites. If you can fill in any of the "?" please do.

Ron's memories in his own words:

I played for the club from 1959 through to 1966, (7 years) mostly in the 1st team .

Why Versailles? The tour we did in 1965, was at the invitation of the French atomic energy research centre rugby team, that was based at Saclay, outside Paris. We took 2 teams and played at the pitch in the neighbouring village of Gif sur Yvette.

In the hill above the pitch was the home of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson. They had been invited to come to the match, but disappointedly didn't turn up.

Our hosts arranged accommodation in an antiquated hotel in the centre of Paris, and we stayed on for a few days to do some sightseeing. This included a visit to the Palace of Versalles accompanied with some of our French hosts and their wives. The thing that impressed us most at Versailles was the communal toilets(men and women), just a large room with a row of toilet pans around the edge of the room. We were not really into all the culture stuff!

A number of our guys had not been abroad before so I spent most of my time in Paris making sure the younger lads kept out of trouble, Quite a task. One of them insisted he wanted to rescue and bring home one of the 'ladies of the night'

We tended to drink wine as we would usually consume beer, with unfortunate results.

I recall a short tour we did to Newquay, Cornwall ( or that may have been with a club called Abbey, in Reading, that I played for occasionally). We had a mess-up in the hotel booking and had to sleep 3 or 4 to a double bed, after getting suitably inebriated of course! The match on the Saturday was very wet and muddy, then had to play again in the same kit on the Sunday, not nice!

All the best

Ron

1962/63 Saclay Tour

Why Versailles? The tour we did in 1963, was at the invitation of the French atomic energy research centre rugby team, that was based at Saclay, outside Paris. We took 2 teams and played at the pitch in the neighbouring village of Gif sur Yvette.

In the hill above the pitch (see Photo 1) was the home of the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson. They had been invited to come to the match, but disappointedly didn't turn up.

Our hosts arranged accommodation in an antiquated hotel in the centre of Paris, and we stayed on for a few days to do some sightseeing. This included a visit to the Palace of Versalles accompanied with some of our French hosts and their wives. The thing that impressed us most at Versailles was the communal toilets(men and women), just a large room with a row of toilet pans around the edge of the room. We were not really into all the culture stuff!

A number of our guys had not been abroad before so I spent most of my time in Paris making sure the younger lads kept out of trouble, Quite a task. One of them insisted he wanted to rescue and bring home one of the 'ladies of the night'

We tended to drink wine as we would usually consume beer, with unfortunate results.

Only the menu records the tour. Does anyone out there have any photos?

Match Day Programme Harwell v Gif sur Yvette, 25th April, 1965

Menu 1: Bon Appetit!

Menu 2: Front Cover