SageBage - perambulations from pram to present by David Bage - President Men of Kent Lynsted Branch

I must say that when our worthy webmaster asked me to contribute something to our website under the title ‘SageBage’ I was a trifle worried that I would not be able to live up to what the name implied.  However when I realised that as sage really was something green and of occasional use in the kitchen, it dawned on me that as someone, not particularly ‘streetwise’ and as someone who lived on his own providing primitive meals for himself I probably fitted the bill!

My next problem was what I was supposed to be writing about and I suggested to our webmaster that perhaps I could start by recording how our branch came about and see where this took us (I am not renowned for keeping to the point!)  He didn’t say ‘no’ so that’s where we are at the moment.

It is nearly thirty years (or it will be by the time I’ve finished this) since Peter and Beryl Birch approached Peggy and myself about the possibility of forming a new branch of the Association of Men of  Kent and Kentish Men.  Although Peggy and I were not members of the Association I had not long before learned of its existence as a member of the Sittingbourne Branch had asked me to include details of their branch in the list of local organisations I had in our local parish News Letter.  Peter however felt that the Sittingbourne branch was now oversubscribed and that there was room for an additional new branch.  I was to learn later that the request had come from the Association.

Peter and Beryl had gathered together some other Sittingbourne branch members and we met fairly regularly at Forge Cottage.  After a long meeting trying to come up with a name for the new branch we adjourned without a decision, only to find on resuming our discussions at the next meeting, the non Lynsted members of the group, without any further discussion,  suggested the name Lynsted - where the idea of the branch had first been conceived.  You see the Beckhams were not really the first to come up with the idea!    There was no further discussion on the matter and we formed ourselves into a steering committee and made our application to the Association to be accepted as a branch of the Association. 

In the early days we concentrated on arranging talks on local Kent matters and outings - I remember one to a brewery and one to London when we went to see a TV programme “Bless me Father” being made. In the very early days, to put some funds into our account, both Peggy and Beryl ran cheese and wine evenings.  We also arranged a few social evenings which were not designed particularly to raise money but just to get us to know one another, after all we were scattered “from Blean to Gillingham” - as one report at the time put it.   The concept of raising money for charity developed later.  We held our first AGM in January 1980 when we elected our first proper committee - some 15 members!  Our membership was then approaching 50 and by the next AGM  it had risen to 80 and we were on our way!