It was donated by Mr & Mrs Chambers, messrs Sims Sons and Cooke and the Nottingham section members. It is awarded to the fastest evening ten on the Nottingham course. Eric Chambers was a member of the Nottingham Section of the National Clarion Cycling Club and a capable editor of the Clarion Fanfare, the club magazine in 1950-1951. He Joined the East Midlands Clarion cycling and Athletic club in 1950 in order to ride time trials and other racing events and became the evening 10 champion and course record holder in 22m-5sec.

Eric had a nickname he was called the Gannet due to the amount of food he ate on a cycling trip to the Lake District. Eric was called up to do his national service, but came to the 1952 Easter Meet at Great Malvern wearing his uniform where with Ron Hudson in Naval uniform they did much sampling of the local waters, not the spa waters but the more intoxicatingones. Eric came to the Clarion Midlands union Whitsun camping weekend at Hemmingford Abbott where he was drowned in a tragic fatal accident. Hemingford Abbott is situated by the river between Huntingdon and St Ives. There where many Clarion Members, with Peterborough, Leicester, Nottingham and

members from other sections. The river Ouse split in to two rivers forming an island near the camp site. It was decided to hire punts and have a race around the island. Eric shared a punt with Henry Lloyd and Bert Booth and others including a member who had been called after a character in a radio entertainment programme by the name of Humphey, someone in their punt had an idea that they could go faster by standing up, which they did with the result that the punt sank in the middle of the river. When the punt I was in passed them they were standing with the water just above

waist high. Humphey couldn’t swim so Eric swam with him to the bank, not the mainland side where the cows had made it muddy but to the island where the boats had moored sometimes. I asked the other members of my boat to stop and help but got a reply “they will be alright”. The next time we came around again there was a lot of people at the spot we had last seen them. I was told that Eric was in the water and that when he had reached the bank he had put his feet down, not knowing that the water was 8 feet deep at that place. Both Eric and Humpheys heads went under-water and Humphey being unaccustomed to water panicked and clung to Eric and they both went down lower in the water. Henry and Bert reached the bank and Bert dived down and found Humphrey, then Bert put his hand above the water and Henry who was now on the bank throw the end of a rope that was tied to a tree into Bert’s hand and pulled him with Humphey out of the water and he was revived. However Eric could not be found as the water was very cloudy and muddy; the

police came with drag lines and found Eric’s body appox 45 mins later. The father of Ian Clarke of the Peterborough (Fenland) section (who was a young man at then) found Eric on the bottom of the river but he had spent is energy getting down there and hadn’t the strength to bring him up to he surface. Eric gave his life to save a friend and club member and it is fitting that there is a trophy in his memory. Eric had the reputation of being accident prone and had rendered his own bike unroadworthy so he borrowed Jack Gardie’s bike when he set the course record of 22m-5secs. Jack’s bike was equipped with gears and Eric had always raced onnfixed wheel before, that was to his advantage on the night of the sixteenth of August 1951.

The Chan Lester Cup was donated to the club in 1987 by Murray Wardle who was Gordon C “chan” Lester’s brother in law, who traveled from Australia to present the trophy in his memory after his death from a brain haemorrhage. Gordon C Lester joined the Nottingham Clarion in 1952. He was a well-liked clubman and respected racing man. He was the club B.A.R. champion in the years 1956, 1957 and 1963. In 1960 he became club record holder for 12 hours with a distance of 254,544 miles, 100 miles with a time of 4 hrs 14mins 38secs. These records stood until they were beaten by Frank Taylor with the times of 100 miles in 4 hrs 2mins 48secs in 1976 and 12hrs in 262,10 miles in 1969. Chan also held the record for the Nottingham to Lincoln and back in 3 hrs-08mins-

20secs in 1956 until it was beaten by Tony “Timber” Woods in 3 hrs-3min-30secs in 1966. Chan did his national service in the army and was stationed in Germany in 1958, his knowledge of German came in handy when we rode from Innsbruck to Nice in 1959with Keith Hancock and Eric Bidulph.