I first met Peter Tozer on the road from Wymondham to Great Melton, Peter and Kath were out on their bikes and I was biking home from work. I stopped and we chatted away, they had just moved from Essex to Wymondham and were busy finding out where the best cycle rides were and trying to find the address of the man who would service their boiler.

Peter explained that he’d been in the Goodmayes Wheelers and in his time a pretty mean performer on his own and in team time trials. Needless to say Peter soon turned up at Shipdham United Reform Methodist Church Hall on a Tuesday night and both Kath and Peter became members of the club. He soon returned to racing and showed the odd glimpse of what he’d achieved in his youth when he beat his vets standard with ease. His racing prowess was brought to an end by  ill-health but he then channelled his energies into marshalling, timekeeping and having two stints at being Cycling Club Breckland’s racing secretary.

As racing secretary he was meticulous in his record keeping and preparation of awards for our annual dinner and prize presentation, something I never achieved when I did the job and I was always in admiration of the riders’ times and their average speed that he could recall at any time during the season.

One of the most difficult duties of being an event secretary is to marshal the course to a suitable level, this requires a certain number of marshals who will not only point the way for the riders but record that they’ve reached that part of the course. Peter and Kath were always willing, when not on some exotic holiday, to marshal some windy, cold roundabout or junction and you could always rely on a perfectly ticked check card at the events end.

It was as a timekeeper that Peter really excelled, his eye for detail and urge to be exact were what, in my opinion, made him one of the best timekeepers I’ve ever known. Heather and I had the pleasure to time the finish of the National Time Trial Championships promoted by the East District on lanes and minor roads near Woodbridge. Two hundred and thirty riders faced the start timekeeper, some at minute intervals and some at two minutes, they were all timed in at the finish with great precision much to the annoyance of the BC team who were there with the giant automated clock which somehow was a whole minute adrift of the official timekeepers (Peter) watch.

Bad eyesight and failing health brought Peter’s timekeeping to an end, although we did entice him out a couple of times after he’d officially retired, he definitely enjoyed his brief recall to timing duties but his worries about his eyesight and not being able to record the times to the high standard he’s set himself meant he never officially held the watch again.

I’m sure Peter is remembered in Essex as a racing man but he will long be remembered by Norfolk and Suffolk cyclists as the man they rarely had to argue with at an events end, due to his excellent timekeeping and recording.

Don Saunders