Mike 'Cowboy' Cook

Otherwise known as ‘Cookie’, has been involved with the 59 Club for what seems like forever! The Council of Management often invited members who committed themselves to helping to join the band of unpaid Club Leaders. Mike was quickly asked to join to help on Club nights. This was also a time when the Greater London Council (GLC) supported Youth Clubs with grants. Youth Clubs were everywhere at that time. The idea was to keep ‘teenagers’ off the streets. The ‘59’ was always full on every Club night with Members coming and going throughout the evening. Father Bill then moved to a new Parish in Dover, where the 69 Motorcycle Club was eventually born.

In August of the same year, with the aid of a grant-funded salary, Mike was employed by the Club full time to help Father Graham, who the Club had also employed since 1967. A few years later, Father Graham left to teach. He stayed on the Club’s Council of Management but resigned from being a paid Club Leader. This left Mike with the everyday work of the Club along with us volunteer Club Leaders. By then the Club resided in Yorkton Street, a fantastic place, with huge, provisions for Members to stay overnight. Thankfully, the Club carried on receiving grants for Mike’s salary, insurance, heating etc. from the GLC, then later from the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). Unfortunately, these grants dried up in 1992 and the Council of Management had to make Mike redundant, ironically leaving us unpaid volunteers to carry on. But that’s another story!

Mike stayed on in the house until he moved back to his home-town of Poole, in Dorset, where he has been settled for many years, but he is still very involved with the Council of Management and out riding his motorcycle when he can. His very pithy comments are missed by us all. Mike, originally a journalist, decided to write his book about the early history of the 59 Club. Very generously he has offered any profits, after his printing costs, to be donated to the Club. Mike is a ‘Diarist’ and a bit of a ‘Wordsmith’, so the book comprises 200 pages of the Club’s first 30 years of history, with some of his rather extensive photo collection dotted throughout. It’s well worth a read at £14.We do have copies at the Club Rooms, in Plaistow, but you can also buy it here.

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