THE February meeting was well attended and members were welcomed by Tim Smith, the Chairman who said that as both he and Bob Britton would be on holiday for the March meeting, Tim Vale would ably take his place.

Photographs of the Burns Supper were now available to be seen on the Village Web Site. He also confirmed that the coach had been booked for the annual outing to Westons Cider and that Tim Vale, Treasurer would start taking payment of £25 per person next month for this trip.

Our speaker for the evening was the well known Stuntman Dick Sheppard who entertained us with his exploits over the years.

Dick was born on May 20, 1930, the same day as the first experimental programme on television was launched and retired in 1996.

Some of us could remember Dick as he had operated in the Gloucestershire area, particularly Gloucester Park.

He is the holder of 18 world records and is mentioned in the Guinness Book of Records.

His talk started with a short DVD showing how he first started in the stunt business and his career ranged from putting on shows with his ‘Fabulous Motor Cyclons’, appearing on BBC and other independent companies, and doing stunts in over 500 films, including his favourite The Italian Job.

He started off with motorbikes and changed to cars in the 1960s and actually has the World Record for wrecking 2,003 cars.

He even did equestrian stunts and we listened with interest to how this was done without injuring the horse.

Dick entertained us with that saying ‘never work with animals and children’ and although he never had a problem with children he gave amusing insights into the various animals he had worked with, including a gorilla in the film ‘Gor’, a boa constrictor and a crocodile.

With the aid of photographs taken over the years and Dick’s interesting commentary, we were able to get a good insight into his amazing life which also included writing three books.

After he had been thanked for his talk, members asked questions.

One of which, was how many bones he had broken during his career - all Dick said was that he had never lost a booking and that if he could start his life again, he would not have changed it in any way.

The talk finished with Dick telling us not to emulate him whilst driving home.

Our next meeting is on March 25 - ‘The Life of an Auctioneer’ with Nick Bowkett and members were reminded to each bring a small item to be valued.