We are sorry to report that Mike Rosewell died on 6th August. Mike came from a long line of Shepperton boatbuilders and watermen, based at Rosewell’s boathouse on Sandhills Meadow (near the Red Lion). In 1928 his grandfather Bruno leased the boathouse on the Common Plat (now the Black Swan Sea Cadets) to the recently-formed Walton Rowing Club. Mike rowed in several very successful Walton crews in the 1950s, reaching the final of the Wyfolds in 1959.
He was Head of Rowing at St Georges College before moving to St Edwards in 1976 as Head of Economics and of Rowing. But he was best known in the rowing community as rowing correspondent for The Times, in the days when major domestic and international rowing events could regularly command several column-inches, and for his column “Just Alf” in Rowing magazine (then the ARA house journal), which often used Walton and its members as the archetypical local rowing club. He continued to report on rowing events until very recently.