Robert Swann—known also as Bob Swann—was my best friend when we were growing up in Holywood Co Down in the 1940s and 50s. We lived fairly near one another were in the same Scout troop, and went to Sullivan Upper School, although we were not in the same form as I was a year older. Robert always wanted to be a civil engineer, and to this end his father wanted him to get a State Exhibition (a state scholarship) so he sent him to Armagh Royal School as a boarder for his final year at school. We kept up a lively correspondence during this year which I still have. This shows that Robert hated Armagh but he did get the State Exhibition and so went up to Queen’s University Belfast in 1955.
J G Riddell, as he was always referred to in regatta programmes, but known to one and all as "Jimmy" came to Queen's in 1960 from Coleraine Inst. where he had learned to row.
Arthur Lewis, Queen’s rowing ‘Blue’ died on 14 May 2020 at home in the Napa Valley, California at the age of 86. Arthur was the younger brother of John Lewis, captain of the boat club in 1953. The two brothers were born in Swansea and Arthur spent the first 15 years of his life there before moving to Belfast where he attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution.
