Much has happened since Bexley Fencing Club was formed in 1950 and some of it can be found here.
We hope that the anecdotes, articles and information contained within will give some insight into The Bexley Fencing Club but we also hope that it may jog the odd memory or two and enable us to find out more.
As with many historical artefacts, it is what is not told that may be important and that is what we are trying to find out.

We are always looking for information about the club, so if you know anything about The Bexley Fencing Club, anything about any of the pictures or articles, anything about any of the people in the pictures or articles (or are one of those people) then please get in touch with us. As we glean and discover, we will add additional pictures, notes and anything else we can find.

Our Scrapbooks can be found by clicking here.

Memories from members and ex-members can be found by clicking here.

Beginnings...

Clement Attlee was the Prime Minister and Winston Churchill was waiting in the wings for another term of office.
King George VI was on the throne and it would be another three years before his eldest daughter, Princess Elizabeth, became queen.

Tea was still being rationed along with sugar, sweets, butter, cheese and meat. You could buy a bicycle for 51/- (that’s £2.60 to all you youngsters!)

The public appetite for television was unstoppable despite the fact that two out of three Britons had never even seen a television set.

In America the Diners Club Card is introduced, the world’s first Credit Card whilst The Huntsville Times runs the headline, "Dr. von Braun Says Rocket Flights Possible to Moon."
The conquest of Everest is still 3 years away and a twinkle in Edmund Hillary’s eye.
Japanese soldier Yuichi Akitsu surrenders in the Philippines whilst that Christmas Scottish nationalists would take the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey.
In Europe the Swiss parliament refuses voting right for women while Belgium abolishes the death penalty.

And in the South East of London...

The Bexley Fencing Club came about with the opening of the Bexley Adult Education Centre at 5 Brampton Road in Bexleyheath in 1950. It was the Kent Education Committee that established the centre but it was the membership that grew and sustained it.

The centre was opened in September of 1950 by General Sir Ronald Adam and the Warden was Edward Alderton. The Rt Hon Edward Heath MP and Councillor Vergette, the Mayor of Bexley were also at the opening ceremony.

The building itself had been a fire station previously and the corrugated-roof sheds at the rear of the main house that had housed the fire engines would also be called into use as the centre expanded during those early years.
The Edward Alderton Theatre is named after the centre’s first warden.

During the first ten years of its existence the fencing team won the Kent county championship eight times and in the early part of that first ten years Professor Léon Bertrand became the fencing master for the club.

“I took lessons from Prof Leon Bertrand and I remember always being petrified during the lessons. He gave lessons mixing up French, Italian and English, which were very difficult to understand. I would get the required phrase wrong and he would repeat the incomprehensible instructions in an ever louder voice.
I also remember Vic Lagnado, who was the leading foil coach at Salle Paul, coming to Bexley to take lessons from Prof Bertrand.” ~ Robin

By 1958 classes were being run by the Professor twice a week (on Tuesdays and Fridays) and equipment was being provided for those wishing to try the sport.

The club was involved with the Bexley community from the very start, putting on various displays in aid of charities.

Ian Single was a schoolboy foil fencer at Bexley during this time. Later he joined Salle Paul and later still fenced for Great Britain in a number of World Championships and the 1972 Munich Olympics with Anthony Power, Barry Paul, Graham Paul and Michael Brekin.

Léon Bertrand: Before the war he had coached the Oxford University Fencing Club along with Felix Graves as well as instructing at Salle Bertrand.
Felix was president of the British Academy of Fencing Masters (the pre-war version of the British Academy of Fencing.)

Bertrand had already written ‘Cut and Thrust’ and ‘The Fencers Companion’ and was the first President of the British Academy of Fencing which had come about from an idea by Charles de Beaumont and it was implemented by Professor Roger Crosnier, Professor Leon Paul and Mr. J.D. Aylward.

‘Punch’ Bertrand (as he was also known) came to Bexley at around the same time that Salle Bertrand merged with the London Fencing Club, 1953. He finally retired in 1977

The first time that Len Camin is mentioned is him winning an award for fencing at the 1966 International Sports Festival at Crystal Palace. Even at this time Len was not content with one fencing club in the area and wanted to expand the sport to other areas in the south-east.

1968 saw the cartoonist Syd Jordan visiting Bexley Fencing Club. Edward Alderton is mentioned as the president of Kent Fencing as well as the principal of the centre. Robin Davenport (Kent champion) and Alma Barton (also Kent champion) show that the club was a force to be reckoned with in competition. Many of the newspaper cuttings show that Stan Allen and Robin often competed together and that Carol Tungate also competed regularly. Robin still competes and won the Gold medal at the recent (2008) veteran games in Australia.

1985 saw Bexley Fencing Club put on it's first major competition, The Kent County Team Foil Championships. The event took place at the Crook Log Sports Centre, a stone's throw from where the club began 25 years previously. We haven't been able to find out who won the event.

During the seventies and eighties (The programme here is from 1985) there seems to have been a determined effort to 'feed' the club using evening classes to start with and then moving those that were interested onto the club 'proper'. The course tutor is John McMahon, who was a Provost member of the BAF (the British Academy of Fencing) who's origins go back to 1540. During the Second World War the academy hibernated, but in 1949 the Ancient Guild of Fencing Masters was again refounded as "The British Academy of Fencing". The Academy’s first President was Professor Leon Bertrand, Bexley's first coach.