[5] The club enjoyed fame into the early 1980s as the top hang-out spot for London Rockers and other motorcyclists, seen as creating a positive archetype for its young members to follow.

Brides in Fleet Street) to provide a place where young people could meet to enjoy music and fellowship.

Oates secured teen star Cliff Richard to play at its opening night on Thursday, 2 April 1959, and the huge turnout ensured that the club became an instant success.

Richard returned to the club often over subsequent years, and it attracted Princess Margaret, her husband Lord Snowdon, actor Dame Elizabeth Taylor and later many motorcycling sportsmen and musicians.

The motorcyclists met once a week on Saturday evenings at the Eton Mission, where there was ample parking and a large hall with table tennis, billiards, a juke box and a coffee bar.

The centerpiece was a large iced cake created by Arthur Keen and decorated by 'Jiminy' as a facsimile of Brands Hatch motor racing circuit and weighing 84 lb (38 kg).

Membership in September 1966 was quoted at 13,000; the club hosted a stand at the Earls Court motorcycle show to recruit further new members.

[15] The club made headlines again in 1968, when it became one of the first places in the UK to preview the previously banned biker movie The Wild One in 1968.

[18] Besides motorcycles and 1950s rock and roll, the club involved activities such as football and sub-aqua diving—which gave the youths, mainly from underprivileged backgrounds, an outlet for their energy.

The rise of these groups, which tended to cater to an older and tougher crowd, was a contrast to the 59 way of life and marked the end of the 1960s British Rocker subculture.

Bill Shergold was remembered as "a father figure that many of the boys never had"[19] was the president until he died aged 89 in Wells, Somerset in May 2009.

[23] Father Scott Anderson the club Chairman at the time lead the blessing at St Martin in the Fields Trafalgar Square.