Souvenirs

Color print by C. Russell of  Blackgang Chine

SOUVENIR  OF A VISIT IN  1937 Color print by C. Russell of  Blackgang Chine. "One of a thousand such  on the Isle of Wight off the Southern Coast of England. This picture is a gift from beauty loving Bertram Hill, President of the Rotary Club of Ryde, Isle of Wight."

In the first week in July 1937 Paul Harris was visiting the Isle of Wight. On the  morning of Friday July 2, he did some gentle sightseeing in the company of Bertram Hill and his President-elect, the Reverend Sirhowy Jones.  They visited the headquarters of the Royal Yacht Club in Cowes, and then after lunch, Hill took the little party for a drive "over exquisitely beautiful hills, along peaceful, pastoral valleys, dashing at times near the edge of cliffs high above the sea...in course of time into one of the loveliest hamlets he had ever seen.  It was truly Old England at its best", as Paul Harris confided in his diary.  On the way, they passed Osborne House, Queen Victoria's favourite residence and the house in which she died, and still in 1937 the home of Princess Beatrice, the Queen's aged daughter.  On the drive, the party visited Blackgang Chine, named after a local band of smugglers.  'Chine' is a local word for a 'ravine', and Blackgang Chine on the south coast of the island, is perhaps one of the best known of these beauty spots.

[I have just read an article on your web-site about Paul Harris visiting the Isle of Wight in 1937 in the company of Rev. Richard Sirhowy Jones. Richard Jones was my great, great uncle and I have a family photograph of him ( and his sister, my great, great grandmother)

Best wishes for your history project. My father, Tom Meredith, now dead, was a past president and treasurer of the Newbridge and Abercarn Rotary club, in South Wales, U.K. and my mother is still the treasurer of the corresponding Inner Wheel.

Bob Meredith, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire U.K]

Souvenirs

This ongoing project is the work of RGHF senior historian Basil Lewis, first posted 7 April 2006. This section is maintained by RGHF webmaster Paul D. McLain. If you can help identify or supply more information about anything on this page, please contact us at www.historycomment.org

We acknowledge the assistance of DG 11/12 David Templin, ROTARY/One (RGHF Member), Neil Dahlmann of Rotary Club of Highland Park in District 6440, and Jack Selway, USA, with providing photos used in this section.

After you see the museum office, meet his partners and office workers at Harris Dodds & Brown. (A page of photographs of the actual office in the early 2000's)