For 35 years I have been a dealer in racket sports literature, and have staged over 100 exhibitions at tennis events in the UK and Europe, thus I am a natural tennis historian.

From 1976 to 2015, I served on Wimbledon's Centre Court as the steward with responsibility for overseeing the seating arrangements and security of the competitors and their guests. With my staff of six Service Stewards, we managed four changeovers a day, maintaining a tight control on access to that area of seats, always much in demand.

We also hosted a large number of A grade celebrities who came as player guests. Amongst those were Frank Sinatra, Burt Lancaster, Peter Ustinov, David Beckham, Lewis Hamilton, and Kate Middleton's family. In my time on Centre Court I was present for more than 2000 matches!

My talk, BEHIND THE SCENES ON CENTRE COURT, starts with a description of how the All England Club organises itself and the Championships. I then describe a large number of anecdotes organised on a decade by decade basis starting with the 1970s. I can thus tailor a talk to any length of time (one hour preferred) with more or less material and you can chose the period to be covered..

I am a stand-alone speaker with no technical requirements and can give the talk in formal and non-formal venues. I prefer to keep within Surrey, Hampshire and Sussex and charge a fee of £100 per talk inclusive of travel.