paulmock wrote:

Hi Richard,

With all due love and respect...Bing passed away on October 14th, 1977 (not October 10th as you have listed). I know we ALL will be taking some time out next Sunday to observe the 35th anniversary.

Whoops! Typing fingers all mixed up. Dates well known to me if not my fihn=gers!

Hi there, after reading Richard Baker's entry about the 47th Leeds Annual Dinner/Meeting, I thought I would submit a few words on the event and just pay tribute to some special people who made such a valuable contribution to the day. I'm Bob Halls and I report each year in the 'BING' magazine on the proceedings of the meeting, which in truth is about 10 hours of writing notes, with a break for dinner. However if anyone is interested a full and dreadfully comprehensive account will be featured in the Winter edition. About forty of us made our way to Leeds on the day and enjoyed a multitude of offerings, including yet another fantastic DVD compilation by Malcom Macfarlane of 'Bing at the Movies', plus Perry Huntoon giving a presentation of Bing's collaborations with some of the working bands of the Swing Era. Greg Van Beek supplied rare material in a DVD compiled for the meeting, the 5th year he has done so. Good on you Greg! Ron Field gave an account of various contacts he had made in the Celebrity and Golfing World, with personal accounts from Jack Nicklaus, Pat Boone, Peter Alliss, James Garner and Gary Player commenting on their golfing experiences with Crosby. I did a little tribute to Andy Williams and we enjoyed a very good dinner together. Many thanks to Malcolm our magazine editor and to Michael Crampton in the UK, along with Wig across the pond and David in Oz, who seem to work endless hours keeping both the ICC, its superb magazine, annual meeting and the thankless task of finance and admin going. I would recommend the annual meeting to all Bing Crosby lovers, it really is a great and warm experience, ICC members attending this year and other years from USA, Brazil, Australia, France, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Ireland. Quite a mix and all among friends of one purpose, to keep Bing Crosby's memory and music alive. Great day for me though, I was invited to become custodian of one of Bing's hats, given to ICC members by Kathryn Crosby after his death and passed down to various members over the years. My 86 year old father, a lifelong Bing fan disolved into tears when I showed him the hat, he just couldn't believe he was holding Bing's hat! You see my mother died a few years ago and their song in their engagement was 'True Love'. We hugged each other for some minutes and I cried too. Take care... Bob

Thank You very much indeed Bob, or ''Gymbob'' for that informative rundown. I look forward to seeing your more complete version in ''Bing''.  As usual I regret being unable to attend myself.