Philip Poulter
We regret to announce the death of Philip Poulter on Friday 9th June, who was one of the Avenue BC's longest serving and most distinguished bridge members. Whilst we did not see much of Philip in the last five years, along with his wife, Pat, they had been members of the club for over 50 years.
Originally from Huddersfield, Philip moved to Sussex in 1961 to take up a lecturing position in the Chemistry Department at Brighton Polytechnic (later Brighton University).
Playing now at the Avenue BC, he was able to resume his Oxford University bridge partnership with Sandra Landy and a little later, Philip was able to develop a long-term partnership with Duncan Quibell, concentrating on teams with great success at county and national level. Together Philip and Duncan won the Sussex County Championship Teams a record 20 times, winning in each of six decades over a period of 50 years, 1967-2017.
Philip represented Sussex on countless occasions and with Duncan, was a regular triallist for national honours. In 1994, Philip was a member of the Avenue based team that won the Hubert Phillips Bowl (the English Mixed Teams Championship) with Duncan, Sandra, John Elliott & Neil Watts.
In addition to serving on the SCCBA Selection Committee for many years - overseeing in his time as Chair the inauguration of the Sussex League as we now know it – Philip also served on occasion as npc of the England Ladies team.
Philip lived for many years in Burgess Hill with Pat, with whom he had also regularly played bridge at local and county representational level. Sadly, Pat's health prevented her attendance at bridge clubs in her later years and she died in 2020.
At the time of writing details of Philip’s funeral are not known, but these will be communicated to the club membership as and when they are known.
Julian Mitchell.
|