The Uncle George Louis Fabre cup

George Brutton joined the club in 1982.  Living in West Kensington, George was close enough to our lake to enjoy a dip most mornings before work, as well participating in the Saturday race.  He was a solid breast-stroker who always gave of his best in every race and who never once complained about his handicap.  George won the 1986 Peter Pan cup -  his "never complain" attitude obviously worked wonders!  A lesson to us all.

George commenced sponsorship of a late-summer quarter mile race in 1991.

The then club Secretary Alan Titmuss used a cup that had come back into our possession which had been presented by Louis Fabre in 1937.  The trophy was for a series of four midweek races competed for between June and October.  Louis is remebered by those of us who have been around long enough as a great multi discipline athlete with a competitive streak and a will to break records.

Alan Titmuss's (not very) private joke saw the reintroduced cup engraved "Uncle George", a reference to George's role in playing the parent to the three children of his then partner (ultimately wife) Annette.  We thus swam on Saturday for a cup engraved Louis Fabre on one side, and Uncle George on the other.

Writing in the mid 2000s, Alan Titmuss captured memories of Fabre - 

"Louis, a likeable Frenchman, full of Gallic charm and a Maurice Chevalier accent, was born in the South of France. His love of horses brought him to England at the time of the First World War, with the idea of signing up.  It is not clear what happened but he never made it back to France. Right up to his death at the ripe old age of 88 years you would have thought he had just got off the boat at Dover, his accent was so strong. But it paid off with the ladies, especially at his wife's hairdressing salon in Paddington.

"Always fond of the open-air life, at seventy-six he could still be seen, early in the morning, exercising racehorses on Epsom Downs."

It should be noted that Louis was a very competitive club runner with Queens Park Harriers, an experienced cyclist as well as a long time competitor with the Serpentine SC.  He was also no novice with the oars.  What definitely helped the achievement was the fact that the sculling and swimming legs were in the River Thames between Hammersmith and Putney -  i.e. tide and current assisted.