“A MAN of passion”. The Herald headline demanded immediate attention, especially when it appeared among the Women’s Institute reports!

It was the Milburn WI correspondent who wrote about the passion — for his work — of news photographer Fred Wilson, and it was a neat tribute to a man who is among the best-known in Eden after many years of taking pictures for this paper.

Photographers are the front-line men of newsgathering and the work can be challenging in a widespread area like that covered by the Herald. Fred has an exhilarating lifestyle, sometimes dotted with famous faces.

Take his encounters with royalty, such as Prince Charles, at Braithwaite, where they chatted about Windsor Castle and parted with a handshake, as Fred proffered congratulations to the prince, who was a few days away from his marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles.

In the course of duty at Lowther country fair, there were impromptu meetings with the Duke of Edinburgh, who was taking part in horse driving trials and suggested the lensmen should move on, as they had already taken enough pictures of him!

But the pick of Fred Wilson’s memories of royalty is of Ullswater Outward Bound School during a visit by Prince Andrew, who proved to be a caring man.

In Fred’s bid for a good picture, he had somehow cut his forehead on a bramble bush and the bleeding was spotted by the prince, who showed his concern and called on his equerry to produce sticking plaster.

Fred’s wound was carefully attended to and film of the first-aid appeared on TV coverage of the visit.

To complete this round-up of royal memories, it was Fred Wilson’s alacrity which gave the Herald its most memorable picture of the Queen, roaring with laughter at a comical comment by Eden Council chairman Mac Carlyle, during a visit to Penrith.

The moment of mirth was fleeting, but the photographer’s instinct told him to press the button and the rarity of a regal guffaw was captured for posterity.

“Fred was there” is local shorthand, indicating the presence of the cameraman, whether the occasion was a May day, an agricultural show, a football final, a posh dinner or some other event.

QEGS SPORTING STARS

What a brilliant achievement by the Penrith Queen Elizabeth Grammar School rugby union team in reaching a final on the famous Twickenham ground.

It was an occasion for heartwarming pride and reflection on great teams in the past, stretching back into the mists of time. Wait a minute, though, for there was a spell, remembered only by the oldest of old boys, when rugby balls were deflated and put into store.

With sports master “Taffy” Williams called up into HM Forces at the start of the 1939-45 war, history master W. H. (Bill) Hulton took on the responsibility for sport, as long as there was a switch to association football, “his” game.

Bill put great emphasis on the importance of trapping a football. During training sessions he repeatedly booted the ball high into the air and called out the name of the boy who had to perform the near-miracle of bringing the leathern spheroid under control as it crashed to earth again.

The school’s senior side performed remarkably well, completing one season without a single defeat. Sixty years or more have passed but the heroes are keenly remembered: Richard Porthouse in goal, Raymond Herdman and Bill Birtle at fullback, a half-back line of Bob Griffiths, George Mounsey and Jim Paley, and the forwards, Arthur Thompson, Hubert Wilson, Bill Dewhurst, Bert Newton and David Johnson, better known as “Eggy”.

The QEGS junior team of that era could not claim the same sensational success as the seniors, partly through a lack of fixtures, although there were several matches per season with Appleby Grammar School and Furzie Close, a school evacuated in war-time to Carleton Hall, now Cumbria police headquarters.

As one of their team-mates, this columnist recalls some of the young stars of the early-1940s — the nippiness of Norman Corry at centre forward, dashing wingers like Robin Moffat, Frank Murphy and Harry (“Digger”) Brown, tenacious full-backs John Ainsworth and Ronnie Todd, and Ian Taylor “between the sticks”.

The captain was Jim (“Shocker”) Bowman, now living in Canada, who always called on his team to give three cheers to the opposition after the final whistle.

The junior footballers of 60-plus years ago may not have known about 4-4-2 formations, but they had plenty of honest endeavour.

SAVIOUR OF CRICKET

One of Penrith’s wise and caring benefactors is to be memorialised, 90 years after his “good deed” in saving the town’s cricket field, for posterity.

Back in 1919, the urban council wanted to buy Tynefield Park as a site for council houses, but the owner, George Arthur Rimington, a barrister-at-law who lived at Tynefield House, squashed the idea firmly.

The nearby Foundry and football fields were also under consideration by councillors, but Rimington opposed the idea of wiping out the sporting fields. “Penrith is not a manufacturing town,” he declared. “It is a residential and market town and it is desirable that it should possess as many social amenities as possible.”

Some years after Mr. Rimington’s death, the ground was bought by the cricket club, whose officials are now co-operating with his grandson, G. Philip Rimington, of Holt, Wrexham, to create a tasteful memorial plaque for display in the clubhouse.