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Below you will find some articles about History of the DA, and tales from some of our members past and present. If you have anything you would like to add here please send the details to the webmaster
Memoirs from Albert Payne, the President of the North West Region and former chairman of the North West Region and Lancashire & Cheshire DA
The original Camping Club (A.C.C.) was an offshoot of the Cyclists Touring Club in 1901.
When LCDA was formed in 1912, the members were mostly cyclists who needed lightweight camping gear and the club developed and sold quality camping euipment through a co-operative venture trading as CAMPTORS. I bought my sleeping bag from the branch in Manchester in 1935, many members made their own tents etc. As late as 1970 patterns for tents were in the Club Handbook, supplied by Ralph Petty from North Lancs DA. We borrowed patterns from Ralph and made tents.
Up to 1939 the DA's were mostly cyclists but a few motorcycles and three wheelers camped with the DA and tents were mostly used up to the early 1950's when cars became available and one or two caravans and by 1970 the vans were a majority and the numbers camping by this time had got so many that there were difficulty in finding sites big enough for our Midummer Meet (90 units) and FOL meets.
Sunday morning walks were very popular and the steward of the meet would blow his whistle at 11am and shout 'wakey wakey' that was after he had collected fees and got milk from the farm to distribute to customers.
His first task on arriving was to dig a "latty hole" usually helped by other men.
Offshoots of LCDA were NE Cheshire 1964, South Lancs 1974, Roch Valley 1976 (according to regional minutes of DA reps)
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