Further musings (at year 17) on what Puddles is about:
1. Three of the original four Puddles members now expect to meet as “a tight triumvirate” in Beckenham, Kent - as indeed Puddles met at The White Horse, Sutton, Sussex, from 1996 to 2002, starting as a foursome of “like-minded men”. This was the original definition.
2. Beckenham Puddles symbolizes (for me anyway) the original format of Puddles and its connection with Peter Lord (1934), and Mike Wisher (1946), Steve Walters (1962) and David G (1969), who joined the firm in the years shown, and the foundation of the modern UD&L in London and Leeds in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. All four were also linked as either exclusively trained (FEPL and MFW) at UDL, or ‘all but 9 months-trained’ (in FJW’s case) at UDL, or (DGG) ‘having a Mewburns connection’ (shared by DGG with WUD and hence with UDL itself, and likewise with RHH’s dad), not to mention all having joined the firm long before WUD had his Golden Jubilee celebration (50 years in practice) at The Wig and Pen in 1977, to which they were all invited;
3. On the other hand, we of the other Puddles group, also represent the ongoing firm as it was through the ‘80s and ‘90s (and onwards to the time of Simon’s senior partnership, after 2002). These were the decades of rapid growth and change triggered by the opening of the EPO and PCT. That phase of UDL provided opportunities for me which changed my life, and for which I will always be grateful. The firm had, from its birth, tended to grow and change ‘organically’: WUD’s start at Mewburns arose because his cousin Agnes’s husband was a barrister, who, at the end of WW1 introduced Bill to his (the barrister’s) brother-in-law, George Beloe Ellis, co-founder of Mewburns, who got WUD started in IP at Mewburns and later encouraged him to buy-in to GGMH’s London practice. WUD’s partnership with Peter Lord arose because WUD’s first home in Ealing was bought (in the ‘roaring twenties’) from Peter Lord’s elder sister, who knew of the Dykes’s motor-racing prowess and this knowledge led to her inviting the Dykes to dinner to meet her motor-racing friend from NZ. As a by-product of this dinner invitation, WUD became a family-friend of the Lords. He met and got to know his (house-purchase) vendor’s younger brother ie Peter Lord himself, who was then a teenager (being 15 years younger than Bill). Peter had long admired the handsome Alvis racer parked in the Dykes’s Ealing drive, as he walked to school. Bill Dykes later helped Peter to build his own racer from spare parts during Peter’s Cambridge degree course, and then when Peter left Cambridge, he encouraged Peter to switch to IP (with WUD in the Hardingham and Dykes practice) and a lifetime of spare-time involvement with Alvis cars, from his previously-intended career in the Lords’ family business of house-design.
4. And that phase was followed by what Mike calls in his letter to me: “UDL as it is now” - which I sense he feels is significantly different, and is for others to take care of, meaning of course the present partnership. Simon and possible invitees represent UDL as it is now – but will not be with us at Puddles 2013;
5. Thus: three phases of UD&L’s story, all represented at Puddles. Steve and David G are members of both Puddles groups, and Simon links us to UD&L as it is now. And for me, whatever UD&L is or has become, my twenty-two UD&L years were a defining time of my life. And this is true, not just for me, I suspect.
Crossroads?
It also strikes me that here we are at year-17 of Puddles, but it’s a bit of a crossroads for us the ‘other Puddles people’, presently meeting in Lyddington. Despite our enjoyable dinners, we could easily be short on coherence if we lose David G and Steve to ‘Original Puddles’ in Kent. So I hope I can persuade them both to come back to Rutland even though they’ve been to Beckenham, not least to link us back to our origins, but especially for their good company!
And of course the same applies to Simon too. He links us forward to the ongoing firm, and (for me) that link could be comfortably supplemented by occasional invitations to other members of the current firm.
And what’s more, now at last I am finding time to get back to adding to the amazing historical background of the firm – which I view as a contextual ‘cement’ not just for Puddles, but for my version of ‘The UD&L Story’. And I hope to show you something of this printed in November. For the moment here’s a link to Bill Dykes’s ‘Uncle Alfred McNair Dykes’ (his father’s younger brother), who was quite a military figure, as were Bill himself, and Bill’s father William Alston Dykes, not to mention Wing Commander Peter Lord: