You asked me to say a brief word about the reappearance of the Ramblers
pennant, which I was delighted to see, in Ireland, for the first time for
nearly a quarter of a century. I was also delighted to see that it was still
in extremely good condition. In my years with the Ramblers, there have been
five Ramblers flags. There was one that only flew satisfactorily in a very
high wind because it had been patched so often with strips of khaki
tape. There was another which covered your father's coffin, at his funeral,
which we subsequently used on the same day, for a match against the Old Blues,
at Christ's Hospital in Horsham. Then there was this little pennant which has
re-emerged. Then there was a flag which was made specially, on a bottle green
background, for the five hundredth anniversary match, which was held at
Brook. That flag only flew once and I still have it. Finally, there was a
giant double sided flag which I had made, at my own cost, when I was trying to
revive the Ramblers in the early 80's. I had to have the big flag made because
the pennant had disappeared. For many years, I had no idea where it had
gone. I imagined, like the score books, that it had evaporated in the hands of
people who had no notion as to what had been entrusted to them.
One fine day, about six or seven years ago, my mother told me that she had
lunch with Jean Francis and that Jean had told her that Ian Inglis had
admitted to her, while on leave from South Africa, that he was possessed of a
Ramblers flag. Apparently, he had told Jean that it had been thrust upon him
as he'd departed from Brook, after a Kenya Kongonis's match. Apparently, the
donor had run after his car and said "You may as well have this as a
souvenir. We will not be needing it any more." Knowing that my mother doesn't
always get quite the right end of the stick, I obtained Ian's address and
telephone number from Jean and wrote to him asking him whether there was any
truth in the story. I had no reply. Accordingly, I rang him up in South Africa
and he flatly denied the story. I completely forgot about it until Brian
Davenport told me that Jean Francis had given him back the small Ramblers
pennant. I can only assume that Ian came upon it and remembered my telephone
call, even if he had forgotten the circumstances under which he came by the
flag in the first place. It is certainly the only one of the five Ramblers
flags which has spent a quarter of a century of its existence in the southern
hemisphere. There may be more or less to the story that I have just recounted
but the important thing is that it has now been restored to us in good
condition.
Love to Jennie,