Death of former Chairman announced

Derek Ladkin passed away on February 8th aged 92. Derek was a stalwart of Essex Stragglers in the early days including a stint as Chairman. Our sympathy goes to his son, Russ also an orienteer with Stragglers.

Derek's funeral will take place on March 21st at 11:45 at Weeley Crematorium and then at The Ship, Kirby-le-Soken.
https://derekladkin.muchloved.com

Russ remembers as a youngster travelling far and wide to JK's, Scottish 6 days, Yorkshire Rose and events south of London. Also memories of checking soggy punch marks inside Bill and Pauline Stevens caravan at Hatfield. Those were the days!

In 1985 Russ and Derek competed together in what was then the KIMM mountain marathon with several other stragglers.

Derek won many EAGAL medals, 1992 2nd M60 and 1983 3rd M50 British Night Champs. The latter was probably Bradgate Park, Leicester where Derek grew up and involved a story. He would have been quicker but had to take cover in a ditch while a herd of deer jumped over him having been startled by other competitors. His main class rival was Jack Isbester also sadly no longer with us and they enjoyed a very friendly rivalry.

Derek instigated the 'O-men' results system at Stragglers summer relays where teams of 4 had to complete 2 long, 3 medium and 4 short courses. The results were shown as 'O-men' coloured in by hand on a large display board as the event progressed like a 1960's beetle drive!

After orienteering and the loss of his wife Vera he moved to more water based sports kayaking and building his own coracle. At the age of 82 he had a short phase doing parkrun including at Colchester Castle and was always first in his age class!