The history of the Saint Club, as was written on a bit of paper I was sent when I joined The Saint Club in about 1985.
Started in 1936 by Leslie Charteris as a world wide association of readers of his books, their subscriptions maintaining a children's ward in a hospital in Plaistow, East London, until hospitals were nationalised in 1948. From that date subscriptions were donated to the Arbour Youth Centre in Stepney.
In 1952 I[1] became Vice-Chairman of the Arbour Youth Centre and a member of The Saint Club. In 1971 I became Honorary Secretary of the Saint Club, and shortly afterwards persuaded Leslie Charteris to become President of the Arbour Youth Centre, so you can see that we are both interested in raising funds for the Arbour Youth Centre.
For a number of years after the 1939-1945 war there was a dwindling membership of the Saint Club, largely due to constant changing of secretaries and lack of advertising by the publishers of the 'Saint' books.
However, since 1971 things began to look up again, with a small but steady increase of members, an american branch, and now a possibility of an Autralian branch. Since the T.V. series started in september 1978 we have had over 1000 new members.
In 1979 the Saint Club was awarded a Wilkinson Sword Trophy (insured for £ 200 ) for annual presentation to the Best Boxer of the Year at the Arbour Youth Boxing Club. There were over 4000 applicants for 300 trophies.
In addition, we were able to hand a cheque for £ 1,000 to the Arbour Youth Centre at the September managers' meeting in 1979, and a further £ 1000 each year since.
[snip]
[1]Norman Turner
