He is pictured on the home page of the website as a window into the beginnings of my archery club, the Bowmen of Bruntwood, in 1950. And he is still shooting at the venerable age of 90!
His name is Ian Paton, a founder member of the club, seen shooting with club founder Trevor Francis and another member in those early years. Ian is in the centre, wearing a cap.
Ian uses a longbow now as opposed to the bow he was using aged just 15 in 1950 when the club was first formed as Cheadle Bowmen in my home town of Stockport, UK. It later changed its name to avoid confusion with the Cheadle in Staffordshire.
The club was formed by Trevor Francis at his flat in Cheadle high street even before they had a ground to shoot on, and Ian became its first records officer while still at school. Trevor was a glider pilot in World War Two and because of a back injury sustained during active service he avoided contact sports post-war and decided to take up archery instead.
It was an archery tournament at Platt Fields in Manchester that resulted in Ian taking up the sport. Trevor was attending the tournament and Ian got into conversation with him after the shoot. Trevor said he was thinking of starting his own club and gave him his address. And that’s how Ian’s archery career began.
After seven years at the club, national service intervened, and Ian spent two years as an RAF radar technician. He wrote an entertaining book about his exploits, and the title will give you the flavour of what these conscripts thought of national service. It’s called Roll on Death.
But it was only in the year 2000 that Ian decided to take up archery again, shooting recurve. He brought back not only his early experience of the club, which by then had moved from what is now the golf course at Bruntwood to its present location, but the fact that he was still in touch with our founder, Trevor.
After a career in textiles, Trevor had retired to Natal in South Africa with his wife, Meg, who was also an archer, but Ian kept up the connection with them through the decades until Trevor’s death in 2015.
Ian also introduced his grandsons, David and Steven, to archery.
He is a font of knowledge about the early years of the club, with a wry sense of humour. He recalls that during the winter months when they had no indoor facilities for shooting, they took up fencing, with the venue being Trevor’s flat, much to Meg’s annoyance as the weapons left marks on the wall from their rubber tips.
The arrows they used in those post-war years were high-tech, made from an aluminium alloy called hiduminium, used in aircraft construction, including the later Concorde. But the fletchings were still feathers.
The club also bought its own taxi to take members to tournaments. As the junior, Ian always got the jump seat…and was confined to the vehicle when the older archers stopped off for a welcome post-tournament drink.
But as you can see from the image on this page, Ian has travelled well.