My Family and I would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all the friends from both the Southend and Basildon Table Tennis Leagues for the support we received at Brian’s funeral on Thursday 3^rd June. Brian would have been honoured by the amount of people that turned up.

Thanks to those that sent floral tributes; they we beautiful. And thanks to everyone for the donations collected for the Ron Pickering Memorial Fund. We are sending £891.80 to the Memorial Fund in Brian’s name. We understand that some people donated on-line, so this figure will have topped to over £900.

For those of you that don’t know, Ron Pickering, was also an East End Lad. He was an athletics coach and BBC sports commentator. He coached several Olympic athletes, including Lynn Davies, a Welsh Olympic Games gold medallist long jumper. He was the first host of the BBC1 children's sports programme We Are the Champions - a show he continued presenting up until his death in 1991. The memorial fund was set up in his name to awards grants annually to talented young athletes between the ages of 15 and 23, who are still in education, in the hope it will keep them in sport and enable them to realise their potential. Grants are also given to coaches, coaching projects and for athletic equipment for sports halls.

Brian regularly contributed to this fund because he believed strongly in its purpose. This was Brian’s passion, to help juniors to recognise their potential and for them to progress in their chosen sport, but most of all to enjoy their sport and to encourage them to continue partaking.

Once again we thank you.

Maureen, Kathy, Sue and Steve Cooper