Category: News

Bob Hicks

It is always difficult to be asked to write a few words on the passing of an old friend so I shall be brief.

My wife and I knew Bob from a distance through his interest in ‘Things Japanese’ more or less all his adult life. It was about forty years ago that we first invited him to contribute an intermittent book review to the Journal of the British Kendo Renmei on cultural publications on Japanese subjects that would interest our Members. About this time he began practice in these arts and many of our older students remember him. I should add ‘from a distance’ because Peterborough lies a long way from our centre here in the South so it was not so easy to meet on any sort of regular basis. But, thanks to the invention of email we kept up our correspondence until a couple of months ago.

His erudite understanding was always great help to us all and deeply appreciated. It is such a pity that he never achieved his ambition to visit that country.

Our sincere condolences go out to Sara and his family.

Roald Knutsen and The British Kendo Renmei

In Memory of Reg Winnall

It is with regret that I have to let you know about the passing of Reg Winnall in December last year “at the grand old age of 97” in the words of his friend Terry Brough. Reg was a keen budo-ka of several decades standing. He practiced Judo in Stafford in the 1960’s, which led to Aikido, including a seminar with Koichi Tohei sensei when he visited the UK (Reg managing to capture the sessions on film). This in turn sparked an interest in chi/ki that he stayed with him for the remainder of his life and partly explains his fluid ashi-waza. 

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