After landing at Heathrow, we drove straight to Henley-on-Thames where we had a light brunch at The Angel Pub & Restaurant before continuing on to find our accommodations in Wargrave. (Many of these pictures were taken in 1989, but as I have said before, Henley is timeless.)

We also caught our first glimpse of the Henley course.  We had arrived a full week before the beginning of the Regatta. A week later, this same scene would be bursting with people and boats, both racing shells and pleasure craft.

Gary Zwart and those assisting him in planning our Henley visit had wanted to reserve rooms at the Red Lion Hotel which, as far as I know, was the only hotel in the village. This would have been ideal, logistically, as it was just a short walk across Henley Bridge to the boat docks. However, the Russian Navy contingent had booked virtually the entire hotel, even though I don't know that they occupied even half of it. We were at the height of the Cold War. It was clear from the beginning that the men who were chaperoning the Russian crew wanted to minimize any interaction between the Russians and anyone from the West.

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Instead, Gary learned of Napier House in Wargrave, a small village about eight miles from Henley. Napier House was a large English manor owned by a Mr. and Mrs. Spence. Probably due to the unaccustomed formality of the British style of writing, Gary had been left with the impression that Mrs. Spence, who made all of the arrangements, was a matronly English woman, perhaps in her sixties. What a surprise it was—a very pleasant surprise—when we actually met the Spences. Ken and Lila Spence were a handsome young couple—gorgeous would be a more accurate description of Lila—with two small children. We shared their home for the next ten days and were made to feel welcome from the moment we arrived.

This next picture is out of order chronologically because it is the last picture I took before we departed Henley.  However, I thought you might want to meet the Spences, their two children and their Dutch au pair (center, blue dress).  Wasn't the American flag a nice touch on their part?

Sometime during our ten-day stay, I scaled the hill above Napier House to get a better view. If you look carefully beyond, you can see the proximity of the house to the River Thames.

We got caught up on sleep, then settled into our Henley training routine.

Footnote:  In July 1962, my brother Tom had just completed his first year at Harvard Medical School and knew that this would be his last summer off. Beginning with the fall term, medical school would become a year-round proposition, so Tom decided to make the most of his summer. He joined our crew in England a few days after our arrival, staying with us at Napier House. During his time there, he took in not only the Henley Regatta, but Wimbledon as well. (For those of you who are tennis buffs, the darling of Wimbledon that year was a petite teenager named Billy Jean Moffitt. You might know her better as Billy Jean King.)

I have Tom to thank for at least half of my collection of slides from the 1962 Henley Regatta, as I was otherwise engaged for most of the week. Also, Tom planned a post-Henley visit to Europe during which he and I toured the continent for the remainder of the summer. We were joined by Mark Barron and Dennis Buss and, early in the tour, by Chas Bruggemann. I have written extensively about this tour in an earlier series of letters, but if my reference to the height of the Cold War is of interest to you, I will send you a copy of a letter describing our visit to East Berlin, arriving there exactly one year after the construction of the Berlin Wall.