Historicaleigh - The 80 Club of Leigh

November 2, 2016 by Carole Mulroney

Over 100 years ago in Leigh there was a thriving and very robust over 80s club. One of its members was John Hayward, who at 87 issued a challenge to other Club members to join ‘a brother teetotal member in a refreshing dip in the sea during the months of December and January.’

John said he had bathed in the sea on Christmas Day for 50 years and his view was that ‘people belong too much nowadays to the noble order of lie abeds.’

He said ‘the worst bathe I’ve had! It was some years back—I was only about 80 at the time—down at Eastbourne, with the temperature 14 degrees below freezing. There were long icicles on the iron ladder at the end of the pier, down which I went to let the big rollers sweep over me. I recollect how I had to cling on for dear life. I find it does me a deal of good, this bathing regularly in the sea during winter’. John was a solicitor by profession and his maxim for a long life, health and happiness was ‘Read the Bible, cheat the lawyers; drink water only, so cheat the doctor’. Goodly living and temperance were the royal roads to a hearty age.

John was the founder of the Leigh Eighty Club which had a membership of over forty octogenarians, with a few junior members of 75.