Remembering Cheltenham’s Owe 40 rackets club
This article is an extract from a longer piece on the Cheltenham Local History Society website. There’s a link to it at the end.
From 1918 to 1965, a vibrant rackets club existed just a stone’s throw from East Glos.
When opening the expanded East Glos facilities in summer 2003, squash legend Jonah Barrington mentioned he first set foot on a squash court in Cheltenham in the 1950s. The venue was the Owe 40 Lawn Tennis and Squash Club, named after the highest handicap in tennis.
The club was founded after World War I by Henry Holgate Yolland and his wife, Katherine. They bought some land and built a house and four tennis courts at “Longuenesse”, 127 Old Bath Road, at the junction of where Naunton Park Close is now. The house was named Longuenesse after the place in France where they had worked together on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
After Yolland died in 1939, the courts and the club declined. However, in 1944, Major Albert Edward ‘Ted’ Millman, a former friend of Henry Yolland, was on medical leave from the army, having been injured in 1943 and incapacitated for several months, being blinded in both eyes. With only partial recovery of his sight, he came to stay with the Yolland family at Longuenesse. As an aid to his rehabilitation, he began resurrecting the Owe 40 Club courts, later to be assisted at weekends by German Prisoners of War from Leckhampton Court.
In 1945, Ted and his wife, Elizabeth, took over the running of the club. Later, they purchased the strip of land between 127 and 131. The club went from strength to strength, and its members were varied, including the likes of Professor Jacob Bronowski (“The Ascent of Man”).
Post-Wimbledon celebrity charity and exhibition matches were held at the club and also on the grounds of Cheltenham College from the 1940s to the 1960s. Visiting tennis celebrities included Jack Kramer, Pancho Segura, Lew Hoad, Dorothy Round and Dan Maskell.
Tennis coaching at the Owe 40 Club
Elizabeth Millman had vivid memories of their hectic life at the club:
“I was left to run the club with many and varied helpers when Ted and Doug were away. One memory is of having to be available every 40 minutes to take the squash court fees. Our own children’s baths and mealtimes had to be timed accordingly. I later ran ladies’ tennis afternoons, always feeling I must play with the worst players and put the others tactfully into fours according to ability and temperament. They were good days, but very hard work as we lived on the premises, had no weekends or bank holidays off and were on duty from 8am until 10 pm or later. It was easier when we built a club room separate from the house”.
The Millmans closed the Owe 40 Club in 1965 and sold the land to developers in 1968. Ted became the first East Glos squash coach when the courts opened in 1972, and Elizabeth also played at East Glos for many years until she died in 2017, at 95. Ted died in 1999, just short of his ninetieth birthday.
There’s a more detailed version of this article on the Cheltenham Local History Society website.