MICK

Mick Cuddeford has been a core member of our society for as long as I can recall. Very soon after I joined he invited me along on a trip to Folkestone and introduced me to the delights of ‘digging a big hole in the cliff'. He and I accompanied each other on several trips until not long after he suffered his first heart attack while on a fossil trip to Somerset . This naturally curtailed his fossil collecting for a while and though he did turn up to Christmas parties and the like, for many years he did not actively collect. When I asked him he said that he did not want to collect if he could not pursue it as actively as before. This was typical of Mick, always 110% or not at all!! Fortunately after a few years absence, he became actively involved in the club again and in his Gault Clay research. His methodical collecting and meticulous records are something to put most of us to shame. Never satisfied with the description: “Gault Clay” his note would say “Gault Clay Bed IV 3cm above shell band”, and the name of a fossil not just Hoplites , but Hoplites dentatus var affinis. He would often run one of his famous quizzes or give one of his talks, made all the more enjoyable by the prospect of earning sweets for correct answers! There will now be huge gaps in our Wednesday night program. Our club has been dealt several sad blows over the last couple of years but I suppose things tend to go in cycles like that. I would like to think that somewhere up in heaven Mick and Jim are out collecting together, finding lots of fossils and studiously recording each find, and John is following along behind, not finding a lot but nevertheless having just as good a time!!

Gary Woodall