Fifty Years of Progress 1880-1930

FIFTY YEARS OF PROGRESS light. The Assistant Secretary, also a Civil Servant, received £40 a year for his attendances in the evenings or at other times. One evening in the nineties, on leaving a Committee Meeting of the Blackheath Harriers, held at 9, John Street, in company with the President, the late Mr. F. H. Reed, we encountered Mr. Charles Herbert, posting his cor– respondence for the day in the pillar-box which then stood outside 10, John Street. "Ah!" remarked Mr. Reed approvingly, "always doing something for the good of the sport." "Yes," replied Mr. Herbert, "I've had a busy day. Look here," and he proceeded to drop his letters, one at a time, into the pillar-box. Greatly interested, I counted the letters. There were six! Mr. Herbert had, of course, a great knowledge of the sport, and for many years a large proportion of the handi– caps in the South of England were framed by him. His unfortunate accident in 1906, when he fell from the top of an omnibus, injuring his head, brought his official career .to an unhappy close. A few years later he made his only reappearance at John Street. It was one of the strangest incidents I ever witnessed. The members of the Southern Com– mittee were holding their monthly meeting, held from time immemorial on the last Friday in the month. Half-way through the proceedings the door opened and Mr. Charles Herbert entered. He took a seat near the door, without a word. Every one was too astonished to speak. He listened mechanically to what was happening, and at the end of an hour he got up and walked out. We never saw him again. "The hour usually produces the man." Mr. Percy L. Fisher was selected as the ideal man to establish a new order of things. His reign as Hon. Secretary was a great success from the first day. He not only possessed an intimate knowledge of the sport, as a competitor in recent years, but he had the priceless gift of " getting on well" with every type of club, every type of competitor. He could deliver very effective " blows" in the course of an argument, but they were usually accompanied by a disarming smile, or a witty remark. "Percy Fisher" left a record behind him which his colleagues of that period are not likely to forget. Then came the present occupant of the important office, Sir Harry Barclay. He had had the advantage, among other things, of being very closely in touch with the cross-country clubs, always a very important section of the Association, having acted as President, Hon. Treasurer and Hon. Secretary of the Southern Counties Cross-Country Association, with similar offices in the National Cross-Country Union, in addition to being a Past President of the Blackheath Harriers. He had the difficult task of controlling the post-war period, when conditions in Athletics, as in other direction·s, had changed in many ways. He has also been of special assistance to the Association in all its relations with governing bodies in other lands, and now and again I have seen a letter from a French official beginning " Mon cher ami," and containing even more flowery phrases than our neighbours across the C~annel usually employ. 35 G 2