Present Day
The club still exists in London, and has a large international following. Father Bill Shergold, remembered by Len Paterson, an original Rocker, 59 Club member and founder of the Rocker Reunion movement, as being like “a father figure that many of the boys never had”, was the president until he died aged 89 in Wells, Somerset in May 2009 The chairman is currently Father Scott Anderson. The current committee openly accepts rockers. Father Graham Hullet was recently interviewed for BBC Radio 4 Home Truths programme when he spoke of the club's heyday. Now retired, Father Hullett left the club in the early 1970s over a matter of principle which he is too gentlemanly to discuss and had been written out of the club's history by the other parties until recently. The 59 Club moved from Yorkton Street in Hackney to Plaistow, London and meets twice weekly.
It remains a registered charity as established in 1965, and has evolved into a place where families and individuals are welcome. The difficulties and expense of getting a motorcycle licence has pushed the membership age upwards, but members aged 18 to 65 still attend. The management committee has amongst its committee four members who have been helping the club since the 1960s. The club has been staffed purely by unpaid volunteers since the early 1990s.
The 59 Club maintains links with both the Ace Cafe and the Rockers Reunion. As of 2009, the club had over 30,000 members. Members of the club are enthusiasts of classic or vintage British and Italian motorcycles such as: Norton, Triumph, Ariel, Matchless, AJS, BSA, Royal Enfield, Moto Guzzi and Ducati. The Fifty Nine Club currently has officially recognised chapters in Australia, Belgium, Chicago, France, Germany, Italy, Los Angeles, Spain, Switzerland, and Texas.
In September 2009, the club celebrated its 50th anniversary service at St Martin-in-the-Fields church, Trafalgar Square, London.
Read more about this topic: 59 Club
Famous quotes containing the words present day, present and/or day:
“One of the most singular facts about the unwritten history of this country is the consummate ability with which Southern influence, Southern ideas and Southern ideals, have from the very beginning even up to the present day, dictated to and domineered over the brain and sinew of this nation.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)
“It is not only the prisoners who grow coarse and hardened from corporeal punishment, but those as well who perpetrate the act or are present to witness it.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)
“We swim, day by day, on a river of delusions, and are effectually amused with houses and towns in the air, of which the men about us are dupes. But life is a sincerity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)