LBGC Centenary Book - Flipbook - Page 20
Langland Centenary Book
15/2/05
6:08 pm
Page 20
generally a bar licence should be obtained and the social
activities of the Clubhouse expanded. Accordingly a special
meeting was called and unanimously authorised the Directors
to proceed. By February 1932 one of the locker rooms on the
ground floor was converted into a bar with a window serving
the dining room.This was where the Steward’s entrance to the
Clubhouse now is, and the dining room is now the kitchen, but
was for many years the snooker room. It is probable that the
“dumb waiter” which used to serve the Ladies’ lounge upstairs
was constructed at the same time.
Bill Hill, the professional, and Mrs. Parry the stewardess were
given notice to terminate in March 1932 and a
professional/steward advertised for. Mr. and Mrs. R.R.Norman
from across the water in Ilfracombe were appointed at a salary
of £2 per week.
Rowley Norman was a Devonian by birth and had married the
daughter of the Professional at Ilfracombe, where he had been
an assistant. He was always busy, working on the course, giving
lessons, and with the help of his wife and sister, running the bar.
His daughter was born in the Clubhouse, then, as now, the
Steward’s quarters and she returned to live in the Langland
area and her son Philip Balfry became one of the Club’s best
golfers as detailed later in the book.
The financial position continued to be poor despite having a
“fruit machine” on the premises, running sweepstakes on the
Derby and the November Handicap, waiving Entrance Fees and
giving a year’s free subscription to any member who introduced
five new adult members! The minutes even record asking the
Greens staff to either take a reduction in wages or to work
only three weeks in four! A subsequent minute states “the
greens staff were put on short time for the winter months”,
but it seems that their wages were not reduced for another
two years.
Despite the strained resources of the Club it was kept going
largely through the efforts of a small body of men who went to
considerable lengths to keep it above water. Prominent among
these were the President, H.M. Peel, Greig Simpson, C.E. Penn,
C.E. Mortimer and E.S.Williams.There were of course many
others who helped tremendously but these names are the
most used in the minutes of that period. It is a great pity that
these estimable gentlemen were not alive today to see the
forest their acorns produced.
The minutes are not all financial gloom and doom, however,
normal golfing activities were still maintained; the Founders
Cup was re-engraved “For Medal Foursomes” - a great
improvement from being a cup for putting - and R.H. Marten
presented “a Gold Medal for competition, and a suitable
competition was to be arranged”. No other information
regarding this medal can be traced or the presentation of the
“Marten Cup” for it is not until 1935 that a minute states “the
Marten Cup was allocated to the Club Championship”, so it
may be that the “Gold Medal” was won outright, or possibly
changed by the donor to a cup.
R.H.Marten was at this time a Vice President of the Club and
lived behind the third tee. Bill Richards wrote of him: “over a
period of not less than four years I saw him and his wife on the
course whenever I visited it - which was as often as possible they played about six balls and then retrieved them. At no time
did I see them play a hole in the prescribed fashion, but always
across fairways or to a nearby bunker; never onto a green, but
perhaps they didn’t own a putter”. Or perhaps they were just
bad putters!
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Spoons and ashtrays were purchased for the winners of
monthly medal and bogey competitions. In these days when up
to one hundred and fifty can enter a Saturday medal the
minutes make odd reading:Medal Prizes:
Up to six entries
7 to 10 entries
11 or over entries
Plain tea spoon
Embossed tea spoon or tankard
Embossed ash tray or tankard.
The embossed teaspoons had a small replica of the Clubhouse
in silver gilt at the top of the shaft and the ashtrays also had an
embossed design of the front of the Clubhouse on them.They
were quite nice mementoes of a different era, and some of the
older members or their families may still have them, as they
continued to be presented until after the war.The Club
resurrected the dies of the embossing in the late seventies and
the same design of the front of the Clubhouse, as it was before
the changes took place, was on the tankards presented for
competition prizes.
In September 1933 Mr. Harold Wood presented the “Harold
Wood Cup” which was originally for the best score in the
Langland Open Meeting, which is now for the best score in
medal foursomes and played for in conjunction with the”
Founders Cup”. In 1934 Mr. John Roberts presented the “John
Roberts Cup” which was and still is, for players with handicaps
of 18 and over.
In this 1933/34 period there was, unfortunately, considerable
dissension between the ladies’ section and the directors.This
was largely caused by the ladies’ section wishing to control the
complete finances of their section including subscriptions and
entrance fees and culminated the ladies’ committee resigning
en bloc. A motion at the following Annual General Meeting
“that while the ladies were of the opinion that they had acted
in the best interests of the Club, they had not complied with
the Articles of Association, and this General Meeting desires to
place on record that the action of the Board was correct and
hereby expresses complete confidence in the Board”.
Apparently this mollified the ladies somewhat, as a new ladies’
committee was speedily elected by the ladies’ section and met
a deputation from the Board to discuss matters of “mutual
interest”.The minute books of the ladies’ section amplifies this
to the effect that the Club would furnish prizes for the
competitions at Open Meetings and receive the proceeds
thereof, thus defraying the running expenses of the section.
The finances of the Club continued to be poor, and in October
1934 the wages of the greens staff were reduced to £2 per man
and as a means of increasing income, part of the course was to
be fenced off and application made for the right to erect tents
on this portion of the land.This was to become of considerable
financial importance to the Club as the application for fifty tents
was passed by the Local Authority, and some twenty years later
this permission was increased to eighty five tents.
Alterations were commenced in the Clubhouse at about this
time in order to improve facilities and also to generate some
more; the bar was moved to another room - actually on the
opposite side of the room to where it now stands - a new
kitchen was to be built - where we now have our snooker
room - and the existing dining room was converted to a
snooker room. A billiard table was to be purchased and a
subscription list was opened to cover the cost of the
alterations which, the relevant minute states, “were not to
exceed £60”.There are no records of how much the
alterations actually cost, but the mind boggles at the small
figures which were necessary in those days to cover quite
extensive amounts of work.