I promised a fortnight ago to dig out some more pictures taken by H.G. ('Herbie') White, a familiar figure at Marlow Rowing Club for over 50 years.

As with his 1913 photo of the 'Famous Eight' crew, many of these ended up in sporting magazines of the time and the top two were used by the Topical Press Agency of London E.C.1. to illustrate the growing popularity of rowing as a  ladies' sport.  I wonder if Herbie got paid for his photographic contributions!  

You may have seen the picture, centre right, before – one of my all-time favourites, at a 1920s Regatta on the Rowing Club lawns. I would love to believe that this was also one of Herbie's, but sadly there is no definite proof of that. However, the lady on the left is thought to be Mollie Dunham, wife of Tommy Dunham, a friend and close neighbour of Herbie.  I

have always been a little bit concerned about the other three ladies pictured, but in these changing times probably best not to enlarge on that. When I used this picture over 10 years ago I titled it ' Have you got a light, gal?' but I doubt if too many of you reading this will have any memories of the 1966 chart hit 'Hev Yew Gotta Loight, Boy' by Allan Smethurst, better known as The Singing Postman. 

The two photos lower left are the University crews at Marlow Rowing Club in training for the Annual Boat Race, Putney to Mortlake, and both, as reported in the local press of the time, were in receipt of additional coaching from Herbie. With a huge crowd assembled on the bridge, the upper picture shows the 1913 Cambridge crew, whilst below, 11 years later, the Oxford crew, and I am sure that you, same as myself, will speculate that the Cox, on the right, must have been feeling the cold in order to wear that strange outfit. Any input from Herbie did neither crew any good – both were losers on the day. 

Finally, alongside two cartoon depictions, the three small inserts are Herbie at a 1920s Regatta, and in later life, taken from a group picture with Dick Simpson at the opposite end, an MRC Committee stalwart for a long time, and from the High Street printers Welbourne & Simpson, who, as mentioned in this column a fortnight ago, used many of Herbie's pictures for their series of local postcards. 

Herbie was my Great Uncle, a member of the White family from Bridge Cottage on the Bisham Road. He passed away when I was still at Junior School, and back then, I was probably more interested in his footballing exploits rather than rowing. In a future edition, I'll tell you about some of those.

Contact Michael at michael@jazzfans.co or 01628486571.