Peter And Dickie

HTBS Tim Koch writes from London:

The recent HTBS posting, Tales of Jack Beresford, has a link to a 1989 BBC programme about the great man on YouTube. The person who uploaded it (‘vulcancreedler’) has also made another 1989 TV programme available, this one on Henley Royal Regatta.



The first few minutes of the fifty-minute production is what you would expect from a programme made by people not especially interested in rowing for people not especially interested in rowing. Do not lose heart. Suddenly it turns into an interesting historical piece with some lovely archive film. It is also nice to see some people who, sadly, are no longer with us. These include Richard Burnell (soon to be played by Sam Hoare in Bert and Dickie) and Peter Coni, chairman of the Committee of Management, Henley Royal Regatta.

Though he was an amazingly intelligent, multi-skilled and able man, Coni liked to play some sort of Bertie Wooster character in front of the cameras. In reality he was no one’s fool and Henley Royal Regatta, the London Rowing Club and the sport of rowing owe him a great deal.