Issue 97 - April 1997

Oldest Blue pulled for Steve

He comes from the great era of Jesus rowing under Steve Fairbairn, having been in the Head boat in the Mays of 1922 and 1924.

He was born at Pulverbatch in Shropshire on February 7 1902 and grew up on his father's estate at Mellington Hall. He learned to row at Eton before going to Cambridge to read law and economics, where he was known, inevitably, as Uriah. Unfortunately for Uriah, his Blue Boat became the first to lose to Oxford after the First World War, going down by three quarters of a length in 20.54 to a Dark Blue crew stroked by the American Mellen, with Gully Nickalls at No 7. Nickalls, already a Blue, said that all he said to the new boy in the stroke seat was 'Steady, Pussy', and 'we won'.

Fairbairn had introduced swivels to Jesus but CUBC was firmly in the hands of Orthodox coaches - which did them no harm, because they won the next 13 races.

The influence and coaching of Fairbairn got Heap to the Olympics in Paris in 1924 as spare man for the British team, but nobody dropped out to give him a pull. He has been a great admirer of the great Australian, and recounts countless anecdotes about him. After graduation Heap went to the United States - his mother was American - and worked in the family business there. His first marriage produced a son but ended in divorce, and he returned home as the Second World War broke out to join the army. After the war he settled in South Africa, buying a small dairy farm in the Western Cape and marrying Peggy, a journalist and writer. Sydney never rowed again but became a keen yachtsman and sailed.

© Copyright C. Dodd, 1997.