the Bio himself
Retired Golf Club Manager, now Photographer - Music Promoter - Travel Blogger - #WannaBeMusician
OVERVIEW: He lived in 17 different properties from Birmingham to Johannesburg, worked in a chocolate factory and a few golf clubs.
Derek Cooke born son of Edna May and William Arthur, in Loveday Street hospital in the City of Birmingham on Sunday 1st August 1948.
As well as Derek being born in 1948, other interesting things happened that year that were quite significant in history: Columbia Records introduced the 33 1/3 (long Playing Record) in New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the Olympic Games were held in London and Birmingham's Tommy Godwin won two bronze medals in cycling, Luigi Villoresi wins the British Grand Prix at Silverstone in a Maserati, Aussie Don Bradman played his final cricket test match in England, Aston Villa's average home attendance was 41,431, Arsenal won the 1st Division and Blues the 2nd division, Cadburys launched the fudge bar, the Prime Minister this year was Clement Attlee, George V1 was Monarch, British Railways were Nationalised, Burma gained independance from the UK, 83,260 turned up to watch Manchester Utd draw at home with Arsenal, the Nation of Israel was proclaimed, Lester Piggott aged 12 won his first race at Haydock Park, rising actor Ronnie Barker aged 19 from Bedford made his stage debut, the National Youth Orchestra is formed, John Bonham drummer with Led Zeppelin was born, as was Glenn Frey, Ozzy Osborne, Terry Pratchett, Olivia Newton-John and Lulu.
Communists seized power in Czechoslovakia, Rowntree's introduced Polo mints, the Land Rover was introduced at the Amsterdam Motor Show, the National Health Service begins functioning, the National Insurance scheme came into effect and the first chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous began 6 days before Derek was born. Mahatma Gandhi was murdered in New Delhi, the National Party of Dutch Afrikaners began the policy of apartheid in South Africa. Finally on a lighter note the game of Scrabble was introduced by James Brunot.
**Note:Derek sadly lost his mother (35yo) at 13 years of age whilst living in Kings Heath and father (53) just a decade later aged 23 when living in Greenoak Crescent, Stirchley.
THE EARLY YEARS
When Derek (5) started his first day of Primary school in Birmingham he walked from his home in Alliance Place, Mary Street, Balsall Heath to Tindall Street Infant school. His father Bill had influenced and inspired him with his interest in photography, building a tiny darkroom where he spent hours developing photographs. He made Crystal radio sets and built a reel to reel tape recorder from scratch, he also made models of ships and planes which required enormous patience. During these years Derek often visited his moms mother Granny Evans who lived in a tiny cottage back of shops in Longmore Street, Balsall Heath, her speciality was roly poly suety pudding, to get to the four cottages you entered via a gate between two shop fronts on the main street. Granny Cooke lived in Brookhill Road, Alum Rock. His dad was a Villa fan and had attended the match in 1946 when Villa Park recorded its biggest gate of 76,588 vs Derby County in the 6th Round of the FA Cup. Aged 8 Derek saw his first Villa match on a 9 inch Bush black & white TV with his mom and dad when Aston Villa beat Manchester Utd 2-1 to win the FA Cup Final for the 7th time. They have not won it since. Ironically his first live footy game was in 1959 on a Wednesday night at St Andrews, Blues v WBA, his next game at Villa Park was on a great Saturday when Villa beat Blues 6-2.
Education: The next stage was at Park Hill Junior School in Moseley and the only memory of his time there was the poor standard of teaching when the 11 plus exams were failed by everyone pupil in his class, so no grammer school for anyone. At 11 he moved on to live in a brand new council maisonette with his mom and dad in Hollybank Road, Kings Heath. From here he attended Wheelers Lane Secondary Modern school for boys. This was a school where you learnt quickly how to grow up, after his one altercation settled with a punch up on the jetty outside of school, he was never bothered again.
His dad worked for Permoglaze Paints in Tyseley delivering paint to Tenbury Wells most days, in school holidays Derek looked forward to regular trips there in the lorry cab with him, after Permoglaze in his latter years he worked as an insurance salesman for Liverpool Victoria from the Northfield office.
THE WORK YEARS ENGLAND 1964-1991
Leaving school one week before his 15th birthday Derek had to get work to help is dad keep the house in order, amazingly he found a job in a photography warehouse in Gooch Street in the city, Southall Brothers and Barclay. Earning just £3, 17 shillings and sixpence pw he moved on after 8 months to earn big money at Cadburys £5 per per week.
** His dad re-married Lil (probably fed up with his sons cooking) an old family friend. All this occured at the time Derek started work and they moved into a new house with a new family at 107 Greenoak Crescent in a £2000 purchase and a 3 bed semi detached property situated off Pineapple Road in Stirchley. Derek also now had a step mother, sister Sue and brother Alan Maycey.
CADBURY SCHWEPPES, BOURNVILLE, BIRMINGHAM – Derek enjoyed success playing cricket at school and was appointed Captain of The Bournville Youth Club 1st X1 and represented the Birmingham Youth Club X1 in the annual match at Edgbaston against the Birmingham Parks X1.
MOTORCYCLE YEARS: Cricket took a backward step in the wild late 60's as his love for motor-cycles and the Isle of Man TT Races took hold. His best pals John Imms, Chris Kenward, Jimmy Hooper, George BONE Dunbar, Alex Sommerville and others John PORKY O'Neill, Alan Harris and John Smith would often be seen from Stirchley to Kings Heath on a plethora of magnificent machines. During that period he and friends visited every race track in England with Mallory Park the local favourite.
Derek returned to cricket a decade later after this "born to be wild" era in 1974 to begin his love affair with the Bournville Cricket Club.
Whilst being employed for 27 years by the company, twenty of those years were taken up by serving on various committees’ of the Managing Executive of the Cadbury (Bournville Sports & Leisure Club). At the time Derek emigrated to South Africa in 1991, the Club had 3,500 members.
Work - Derek fulfilled many interesting roles during his years and as a youngster at Cadbury's his initiation of emptying jam tins into a railway truck for a bonus of sixpence for each wasp sting was quite lucrative, he spent 6 years managing a fleet of trade stores which included a few years on a 9.30pm to 8am nightshift (his set up in the General stores was a home from home with customers and pals spending their breaks enjoying table tennis, darts and subbuteo football). This was without doubt the fun time job where he shared half the shift with his pal Clive Westwood, the supper breaks were legendary indeed and meeting a new dapper night canteen boss Adrian (the blade) Milledge who began his cricketing exploits with great relish and determination. A wicket-keeper with an extraordinary straight bat - he became better known as Ade The Blade. His evening sessions with Derek at number 47 on the word processor grew to folklore status as the Bournville Cricket Clubs famous Lemon News reporter was born out this Lea House Road living room - it took great patience and was successful against all odds fending off weekly paw attacks from the feline black and white house cat named Benjamin. This extraordinary production had members waiting by their letter boxes as it was hand delivered to their homes. This began a new career for Adrian who quickly realised his editorial prowess had enormous potential and so it proved from a young hack to sports reporter on the Birmingham Post it was now the first step on the road to big things. He is currently the editor of the PGA Golf Magazine.
During his final years at Cadburys Derek moved on from the Trade Stores to the Management services IT department in the printing area in V block basement, which then moved to a new facilty Laburnum House in 1983 and again in his last few years when the printing operation was re-located to William Street in the City.
Social fun - During the great years at Cadburys – In the early teen years music was changing the world and was so varied and it was inspirational indeed, starting when Elvis came to prominence in the 50’s, Lonnie Donegan (putting on the style) and Chris Barber bringing a new genre of music to Britain. Great names Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochrane, BB King took a music tastes to new levels and it took The Rolling Stones and Beatles touring the USA to show white Americans what Black Blues music was all about, bringing Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf among others to the attention of the world. THE SWINGING 60’S brought us also artists like The Who, The Beatles, The Stones, John Mayall’s Blues Breakers with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton the great Peter Green & Walter Trout etc, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Simon & Garfunkel, Jimi Hendrix so much fabulous stuff. The biggest regret was not going to Mothers in Erdington where it quickly became known as the number 1 live music club in the world between 1968 and 1971. Mothers attracted top artists like Pink Floyd, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, Rory Gallagher, Muddy Waters, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Traffic and Elton John among many other greats. The DISCO scene began and Motown came from Berry Gordy and “Hitsville USA” in downtown Detroit. Derek had a collection of all sorts including the Four Tops to Stevie Wonder in this genre. In Brum we had amongst others The Moody Blues, Spencer Davis with Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Joan Armatrading, Ruby Turner, Jeff Lynne & ELO, Duran Duran, Steve Gibbons, The Move and Black Sabbath.
He spent many winters watching Aston Villa's home and away games, not missing a match with his buddy John “Fingers" Parsons when they won the first division (today known as the Premier League) in 1981 and European Cup in 1982 – his early passion in the late 60's was motor cycles and he spent his annual holidays each year with pals at the TT races in the Isle of Man 6 years running. One female pillion passenger sadly ended up in a gutter after consuming copious amounts of Guinness in Peel. There were a variety of bikes each year which included a Triton, BSA Gold Star, Thruxton Velocette, Honda CB500, Suzuki 500cc T10 and a Yamaha RD 400, our most rediculous bike was a 175cc BSA Bantam owned by John PORKY O'Neill who flew over Ballaugh Bridge going the wrong way around the circuit landing the other side bending the forks at a 45 deg angle.
He stayed great fiends with step brother Alan throughout and shared many happy memories together with each others pals. Both Villa and keen rugby fans they enjoyed a lads teen holiday to Paignton & Torquay with John Imms, Jimmy Hooper and Alex Sommerville. Alan joined Cadburys around the same time as Derek and became a Manager in Sales Accounts - he met through the workplace network the love of his life Georgina and they married and settled down to have two lovely children, Ian and Louise. Step sister Sue was a few years younger and was still studying at Moseley Arts School, she then met a very nice chap she recalled, a Frenchman called Francois at Cannon Hill one day and he swept her off to France shortly after a Pineapple Road wedding. Their two children Emilie and Marc have now grown up and fled the nest. Francois and I became good friends and often still recall our motor cycle trips and real ale pub searches. They both still live in beautiful Provence area of Southern France.
With a decade break from playing cricket Derek failed to reach the high standards promised as a youngster as the 60's frolics took its toll, however with 542 wickets to his name during his final 10 years playing at Bournville and being appointed Captain of the Sunday 1st X1 and the Saturday 2nd X1 he was still passionally involved in the club. During his time he also bagged his most famous scalp in 1979 by removing ex England opener Colin Milburn with a swinging delivery hitting off stump in the Bournville Centenary match against The Lords Taverners – in the same game his most memorable catch was taking Birmingham City supporter Jasper Carrott at point when he was out for third ball for a duck. 3500 supporters jeered him for catching it.
He took up hockey in his late 30's to keep fit during the winter months, encouraging fellow cricketing pals to join his work colleagues from Itnet (Cadburys computer management services) to form a 6th team for Bournville. Tom Jones and Mike Edmundson drove the team to great success.
His pal and opening bowler Paul Penzer died of cancer at 30, just a few months after wife Mary had given birth his son, this affected his thoughts on marriage and the heartache of life when getting too close to people.
The travel bug began after discovering the east and west coast of America in 81 and 82. In 85 Derek bought his first property 47 Lea House Road, Stirchley and a South African lodger named Phil Coombs arrived following a notice request from the company asking if anyone had a spare room. Interesting times with a new house and neighbours with entertainment invitations being sent far and wide to watch two great simultaneously broadcast LIVE AID concerts at Wembley and The JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, an evening broadcast from Madison Square Gardens in New York, the house and garden hosted it's best ever event on this day. Derek spent 4 years in a row traveling all over Southern Africa along with his UK mates and pals in Joburg – his lodgers mother Vashti had left such a great impression on him on how to live life and have fun - Phil & Derek returned from one trip to Stirchley to build their own bar complete with optics in the middle room of the terraced house in Lea House Road - this room soon became the entertainment hub near his work and a handy drinking hole for neighbour Marilyn. Soon after these trips abroad at 42 - Derek decided that the move to William Street at work was not where he wanted to be, so a serious lifestyle change was required and the draw 6000 miles away of the African sunshine proved hard to resist. So off he went on his greatest adventure. He took all his worldly goods with him including his gadgets.
1991 to 1997 – SOUTH AFRICA
Derek left his native Birmingham in August 1991 for SA, this followed a trip 6 months earlier when he set up the overseas move in the Johannesburg Home Affairs offices. Whilst in SA organising the move his boss called him from England asking if he would like to put on a redundancy list, it was a dream come true and Cadbury's paid him £19.600 to go, a man kept his job and Derek returned to Brum empty his work desk, fly to Orlando and purchase a set of Ping irons, he then played golf 4 times a week for 5 months which made him a better golfer than at any period in his life, he shot 78 gross his best ever at North Worcs GC. Derek's lodger and good pal Phil sold the house for him before returning home himself to live with his mom in SA. By this time Derek had been appointed Golf Manager at Observatory GC in Yeoville, Johannesburg, purchased a lovely house near his work in Edenvale and whilst at Observatory Golf Club he introduced Phil to a club member who offered him a post working in their IT dept at a local bank. Not long after this Phil married and now has two grown children both doing well in difficult times out there.
He arrived fresh and relaxed to begin a new life in Bryanston in the leafy exclusive northern suburb of Johannesburg where Phil’s mom looked after him in the initial months, his first thought was to set up a B&B business together then a London Black Taxi service for locals wanting to arrive in style at the various hot spots in the area. However, it was suggested by a family member that he should apply for a job advertised in a local paper, the rest is history as a journey into the golf club management environment had begun.
His role at his first golf manager appointment at Observatory Golf Club (once the home of Bobby Locke) in South Africa stemmed from his organisational experience gained at the Bournville Club. He looked after all aspects of golf, starting, handicaps, competitions, course minute taker and was a big success organising fund raising golf days. In his 13 month stint at Observatory Golf Club he received a complaint one day from a visitor who said his gun and wallet had been stolen by a caddy from his golf bag, he invited him in the office to give his details to the assistant, called the police and had him arrested for gross negligence in possession of a firearm, months later and not connected an armed robbery followed and Derek began to worry that this location was too scary for comfort.
Having been invited to become assistant manager at Kempton Park Country Club (home of Ernie Els), Derek became involved with fund raising and marketing and looked after the food & beverage side of the business. In his second year he witnessed a member being shot in the leg. The club were very generous to its staff having beds available should they have a conflict in their respective townships; the club gave loans to staff to help rebuild their homes after tribal troubles when their homes were burnt down. Mandela’s release just before Derek's arrival in SA and De Klerk’s handover of power, was followed by the ANC’s landslide election victory in 1993, this led all black members of KP staff to believe that they would all have nice new homes and then take over management roles too. Interesting times indeed! - Derek helped lift Kempton Park Country Club from 900 to 1800 members during his four year stint and was ably assisted by local attractive PR girl.
For six great years in South Africa, Derek's social life hit all the buttons with regular visits to the local attractions - wow it was great fun and the golf tours were brilliant to the south coast. The Rugby World Cup Final in 1995 was a high with South Africa winning and Nelson Mandela sporting a Springbok shirt when being presented to the Captain’s.
It seemed a shame to throw all this in but whilst at Kempton Park his own house was robbed and his club car broken into 3 times within 3 months, one morning the steering wheel was found in the middle of the road nearby, other local incidents in the Transvaal area (Gauteng), such as two local secretary/manager’s being murdered as they left to lock up for the day, promptly encouraged his swift departure back to the safety of England. The final straw was his friends mother being attacked in her home, robbed and raped by two black assailants. The UK return may not have happened but for a lunch meeting during Derek's return home to Birmingham where he met up with his old hack pal now top sports writer with National news outlets, Ade THE BLADE in a pub near his office for a chat over lunch. Derek had come over for an interview at Bush Hill Park GC in London and decided to meet up with Ade and discuss his plans. He was taken back and humbled by Adrian's kind offer to put him up in his spare room while he searched for work if he decided to return home. The job at Bush Hill was almost a given as they had encouraged Derek to fly over from South Africa for interview. Derek however, felt it was a committee totally out of tune with reality in todays forward thinking golfing environment and declined a second interview. So, Adrian now had a lodger pre-booked as Derek prepared for the flight home.
THE RETURN TO ENGLAND – 1997
Derek was most obliged to Ade and Jo for putting up with him for some 3 months. One day walking from the library in Bournville Lane he bumped into another old friend from the cricket club Mike Gibson who asked "what are you doing", a few days on Derek was employed doing inventory work for Mike at BWL in Cotteridge. This led to another dear friend Gerry White giving up his spare room nearby in Dell Road, Cotteridge. Mike helped Derek revamp his CV which was duly sent all over the country to golf clubs and a company called Golfotels. One morning Derek had a call from Bob Cameron of Golfotels asking if he was free to drive to London at 2pm on the same afternoon. He was collected in a fabulous Jaguar and driven down to South London by Bob who explained on the journey what was going to happen.
Golfotels made him a great offer which was duly accepted a rolling contract working for BDO receivers at the Crest Sports and Leisure Club in London. During this brief spell as General Manager at this leisure club and driving range, and whilst living at the Clarendon Hotel in Blackheath he received a call from his shift manager explaining he had been confronted with a lock-in by police as helicopters circled a gun fight in Kidbrooke’s notorious Farrier Housing estate, next to the club. Welcome back – Derek.
So it was Ade, Mike and Gez who gave Derek the opportunity to restart his life back in the UK.
Living in yet another unstable environment encouraged Derek to seek employment in a rural peaceful area and he was keen to return to golf. In March 1998 he was called by Will Sutherland the owner of a golf club in Bedfordshire whilst working in London. He came up for the interview and began his career of General Manager at Millbrook Golf Club two weeks later, the club was situated in a fantastic location near the Duke of Bedford forest estates and nearby Ampthill. Millbrook a propriety owned club at that time was about to embark on a new debenture style member’s buy-out scheme. The course was set in a location of total peace and tranquillity apart from the odd occasion whe film crews using helicopters were watching over The Millbrook Test Track and recording the Aston Martin of James Bond being chased by baddies. His initial role was to take on the day to day operation of the business and help market the sale of memberships in a get out plan already set in place for the owner. His scheme advisor's MMS were way off the mark with a plan that was put in place 6 months before Derek's arrival. It quickly became apparent that the scheme was flawed as existing members were not prepared to re-invest without an incentive.
The Club changed its name to Lyshott Heath as a marketing ploy – the owner had developed the scheme in the hope enough members would join to pay him off - it was clear this was going to be a massive challenge, members left in droves and it went down to 175 members at its worst period. The incentive introduced to existing members offered 50% off subscription fees for life, the take off started slowly but members felt after 3 years of half price subs their investment would have been covered. The problem became that the discounted fees could not sustain the business and new money was being used to pay off old life members who were deserting the ship rapidly.
Eventually the owner went bust and sold out in 2002, new owners were found which enabled Derek to guide the club through a sticky members take over in September. Since that change the club had developed dramatically with a £300k clubhouse extension, investment in machinery. In 2007 Derek was named in the top seven in the Club Managers “Manager of the Year” after being nominated by his Chairman, Ian Hill. Derek mentored the Club Professional to take on his role when he retired on 1st August 2013. Ian and Derek both had similar music tastes and often visited the Stables in Wavendon a club owned by Cleo Laine and Johnny Dankworth, to see top performers such as Walter Trout, Muddy Waters son Mud Morganfield and Dr John.
During his long stint in the Millbrook hot seat, Derek organised member golf trips to Scotland, Spain, Thailand, South Africa and South Carolina. He extended his own world travels to Cyprus, China, South Africa again and again, Canada, Hong Kong and Christmas 2010 to Australia to watch the Ashes cricket series, the Boxing Day test in Melbourne and the final 5th match in January 2011 in Sydney.
Derek became friends with many members at the golf club, however one special relationship was born and will continue for life. He became a friend of the Potter family from Flitwick, it began with many fun days playing golf together with Bernie eventually turning into a dear family friendship with his family, wife Janet and their children Carolyne and Rob. They teamed up to play in the local darts league along with another mate Andy Wilkinson, representing the Ampthill snooker club. Derek joined in the Wilby / Potter family annual golf events held as far away as Cornwall where Janet's brother Mick and wife Sandra ran the Cable Station Inn at Porthcurno.
Bernie and Janet joined Derek on a great holiday to Cape Town a road trip along the Garden Route along with family friends, Bernie and Derek visited Thailand three times on golfing holidays meeting a gentleman from Newcastle Mr Don Smithson Chairman of Ryton Golf Club on the first visit and returning with him a year later. Derek became a regular guest for Bernies legendary Sunday roast dinners and Christmas each year was spent at the Potter residence with their family. They are an incredible family who have each suffered in turn a life threatening illness and all fought back. Better times are with them all these days following Rob marrying Claire and making Bernie and Janet the proud grandparents of twins Lois and Jake, their life is well back on track and Carolyne who suffered most during this time is now enjoying the twins as they grow and her new job, but may one day regret giving that spare house key to Derek. He will be back. Derek also had other great friends living nearby in Ampthill, Trevor & Bettina Fitt and Ann & Everton Paisley who he met up with most Friday evenings at the Albion real ale pub and the occasion curry or Italian supper. Ampthill had so many restaurants and pubs for such a small Georgian Market Town.
Retirement: Having planned this day for two years his mission to travel the world was made much easier without any work to worry about. It was also clear that a return home to Birmingham would make a great base for future travel and it would also enable him to rekindle dear old friendships, watch his local idols so season tickets at Edgbaston and Villa Park seemed a real bargain with large over 65 discounts. His 27 year stint at Cadbury’s in Bournville proved instrumental when an offer came his way to rent a bungalow at the Quadrangle, a site built by Richard Cadbury in 1892 that houses 33 superb one bedroom homes and is the Bournville Village Trusts flagship and hidden gem of Birmingham. He retains close friendships in Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes and often visits the area of Flitwick to stay with the Potter family. It was good fortune to meet Paul Winter MBE at MK Dons, where Derek had encouraged Bernie to join him after purchasing season tickets. Paul became a great friend to all, recently joining Derek on a cricket tour to the test matches in Antigua and Grenada in the West Indies and New Year in Cape Town and also spending many days on the lakes of Bedfordshire fishing with both Bernie and Carolyne, they have since been on fishing holidays too near the New Forest.
The saddest period since coming home occured after returning home from a USA trip to find his Stepbrother in hospital and fighting for his life, Alan battled bravely for months but lost his fight sadly leaving a distraught loving wife Georgina and son Ian and daughter Louise and his grandchildren. Desperate times' for all.
Highlights of holiday travel have included China, Hong Kong, Classic Cities of Italy from Venice, to Rome, the 2010/11 Ashes win for England over the Aussies in Melbourne and Sydney, Route 66 road trip from Chicago to LA where he met up with music travel pal Michael Ives, who arranged together a 6 week music trail trip in a Mustang from Chicago, Memphis, Clarksdale, Mississippi Delta, Louisiana, New Orleans, Panama City Beach, Chattanooga, Nashville and New York. The benefits of meeting new friends on his travels is important for sure and sharing several trips with Sue from Chelmsford after the Classic Cities of Italy trip is one and also meeting a wee lady from Edinburgh Cathy has proven great fun sharing music festivals near Ross on Wye and a tour of Edinburgh was a delight with the Military Tattoo a highlight. On a rail trip to Switzerland making friends and seeing them since has been great, local Brummie mate Satish organising tennis tickets, Euro footy in Paris and local classical concerts etc.
More recent trips include the Northern Lights in Norway and Swedish Lapland, Ecuador and The Galapagos Islands, Eastern Europe, Morocco, a memorable West Indies cricket tour to Antigua and Grenada with good friends Paul Winter MBE, Andy Ward and Richard Harrington, another USA trip with Michael to Chicago, Detroit, Toronto and Boston, South Africa twice to Johannesburg and 18 days in Cape Town for Christmas 2015. In April it was a trip with friends to Hong Kong and Sydney, followed by an 18 day cruise from Sydney Harbour to New Zealand, Tahiti, Moorea, Bora Bora and 4 nights in Honolulu, Hawaii. Trips in 2016 to Paris for the Euro football, Amsterdam and Edinburgh for the Royal Military Tattoo will combine with a December trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. 2017 line up will include the National Parks of the USA via Denver to Las Vegas.
Life has turned out well returning home for Derek with special help from ex neighbour Marilyn looking after and putting up with him for months before he got the keys to his bungalow and seeing regular old pals Mike & Shar for curries and dinners.
Now it was time for a decent car again, a BMW 3 series convertable came, followed by a Z3 soft top, then a 11 month affair with a Fabia 2 (WHY?) and finally a return to his senses with a Mercedes SLK 200 tin top convertable. Other plus points were finding local live music venues, The Blue Piano, Big Dans Diva Nights at Fletchers and the The Tower of Song and Roadhouse within walking distance. Add the great banter in the summer watching County Cricket matches with old cricketing pals Ken, Chris and Hemsy, the option to get out and listen to live music 7 nights per week, making many new great friends from at the Tower of Song and Quad neighbours Ron and Roger joining him at the Crossroads Blues Club each Thursday, catching up with old hockey buddies for the occasional lunch " life could not be better".
Michael and Derek completed their final 6 week USA road and flight trip in 2018, details on this websites menu.
Thank you for reading this - it was fun jotting down this memory. Thank you Les, Geraldo, Heddles and Di Bucci for transforming my outlook on life in Johannesburg and a special thank you to ADE, MIKE and GEZ for making my homecoming in 1997 so smooth for me.
I wish my friends in Lime Close, Flitwick a happy and healthy future. xxx See you all soon.
Pictured below is Caddies Golf Society on their inaugural event at Branston Golf Club - Derek assisted colleagues from Cadburys form the society in the 80's
An article on Derek appeared in the Club Manager's Magazine in May 2011 - profile Derek Cooke.pdf (251,5 kB)
Derek is a keen photographer and music promoter and has a list travel links on these webpages - Derek has a passion for travel and will accompany tourists on golf tours in South of France and golf plus