Eric Howell. 04/03/1937 - 30/10/2011

Eric was a member of the Southend Wheelers in the 1970’s/80’s and 90’s until he emigrated to Queensland Australia about sixteen years ago with his wife Josie. Eric already had a sister and his son Gary and family living in Queensland. Eric was a regular competitor in vets road races and time trials, as well as slogging it out in all weathers on the long winter clubs runs of the time.

Past Club Chairman, Fred Little, remembers Eric from the 1950’s when he was a regular on the racing scene in the Romford area, but says he will always remember him most for his attendance at the Wednesday evening time trials. Fred’s wife June, Kay Stark and the late Pat Stark used to gather in the bar at the Star pub in Steeple to await the return of their husbands who were racing. Eric and Brother Frank often turned up and kept the ladies entertained with their jokes and repartee. June says it was a laugh a minute when they were around and they usually had them in stitches. Wednesday nights were never the same when Eric moved to OZ. Happy days, says Fred.

Chris Smith, Baz and Eileen all recall their Lands End Jon ‘O’ Grote’s ride in 1987. Eight of us did the ride as our summer holiday and to raise cash for the Southend Hospital Cat Scanner, with Josie Howell accompanied by the late Sony Finch’s wife Betty driving the back-up Transit mini bus on loan from Ford. It was a barrel of laughs all the way with Eric and Sony’s banter and mickey taking. On one stop on the way, Eric said he would book the digs for the following night as the previous night’s digs booked by Baz at Elsmere weren’t up to much. He booked us into a B and B in Lancaster named Costa del Sole, not Sol, which was a bit suspicious. It was the only wet day that we had on the trip and we all arrived soaking wet. Although the rooms had a hand-basin, the single shower was on the landing so we had to queue to use it. Further-more you had to feed the shower 20 P’s to make it work, so Eric took a bit of ribbing that evening over our meal. However, that wasn’t the end of the story. At breakfast the next morning, the proprietor, who happened to be a Spaniard, hence the name of the B and B, married to an English women, served us toast before the cooked stuff. Like all cyclists we were always hungry and scoffed the toast as soon as it was put on the table. When the man came with the rather small cooked breakfast, we asked for more toast. The man looked at us aghast and shouted “more toast, more toast”, it was like a scene from Oliver Twist. We all laughed, but he wasn’t amused and we didn’t get any more toast. Eric took a lot of ribbing about it, but as you would expect of Eric, he took it all in good part. We didn’t let him book any more digs though.

Baz and Eileen have kept in regular contact with Eric and Josie and always visit them when in Australia, that is every year or so, as their son Mark only lives about forty miles from the Howells. They loved the life in OZ, however, some years ago Eric was diagnosed with a rare blood disease, but received excellent medical treatment that kept the disease under control and most of the time was able to carry on cycling with the local Redland Bay cycling club. Eric never lost interest in the Wheelers and always wanted to know what was going on in the club.

Baz and Eileen visited Eric in March 2011 and he seemed quite well, but he had a spell in hospital in 2010 when he was extremely ill and had to have massive blood transfusions, but he had bounced back in a remarkable recovery. However, a few months ago he was diagnosed with Leukemia and on October 24^th Eric was taken into hospital by ambulance with his condition deteriorating rapidly and he finally succumbed on October 30^th.

Eric was a great bloke and his many friends here and in Australia will be greatly saddened to here of his passing. The members of the Southend Wheelers send their sincere condolences and sympathy to Josie, Gary, Stuart and all of Eric’s family at this sad time.