This is the story of generations of modestly equipped British amateur astronomers and valued contributors overseas. Throughout the past century and more it is they who have given continuity to the work of the BAA Mercury and Venus Section.

The British Astronomical Association was founded in London in the autumn of 1890. The BAA formed observing sections for certain objects or tasks. And, in January 1895 a 30 year old Scottish amateur, Henry McEwen of Glasgow was invited to be Director of the newly formed Mercury and Venus Section. He was to be Director for the next sixty years, a term of office unequalled in the annals of the Association. Strangely, no photograph of him is known to exist.

Henry McEwen was an engineer by profession and he was modestly equipped as an observer (he used only a 12.7cm refractor), but he possessed the qualities of patience and persistence that are the marks of the dedicated amateur. His years as Director produced no significant advances in our knowledge of Mercury and Venus, nor were any advances made in the traditional techniques of visual observation. The reason is that the few advances that were made, were won at the very forefront of professional technology - and even these results were few and uncertain.

McEwen remained Director until just a few months before his death in 1955; and his surviving notes and correspondence show him to have been alert and enthusiastic at an advanced age. The Section suffered a further and irreparable loss immediately after the death of McEwen. Virtually all of the sixty year archive of the Section's work was inadvertently destroyed, because it seems that McEwen had left his executors no instructions about it.

Patrick Moore, the popular writer and TV broadcaster on astronomy, was appointed Director in 1955.

Moore revitalised the Section. He turned attention to the phase anomaly of Venus and to the Ashen Light. Observing techniques started to branch out into photography and visual colour filter observations were made by VA Firsoff, AW Heath, J Hedley Robinson and FC Wykes.

In 1963 Moore was succeeded by Dr FL Jackson, whose brief time in office ended the year after. Before the sixties, Venus was world of mystery. But now, spectroscopic and microwave results were pointing at a hostile environment there. The Mariner 2 spacecraft passed the planet in 1962 and it sent back information which indicated that the temperature at the surface of Venus was lethally high.

The next Director, J Hedley Robinson was a lay preacher whose daily work was in a bank.

Robinson already had ten years experience of visual colour filter work. One of his technical advances was to adopt the Wratten 15 yellow filter for the purpose of making phase estimates of Venus and for general disc examination.

Robinson also improved the approach to ashen light observations, by recommending the use of an occulting bar and the Wratten 47 purple filter for greater reliability and consistency.

Refinement in techniques resulted in evidence that tended to confirm the 4 day super rotation of the Venus atmosphere. This was against the background of ''the great filter battle'', as Patrick Moore put it. The great filter battle was a controversy within the BAA, often focussed on the effectiveness of colour filters in relation to Venus work. Cdr. Henry Hatfield succeeded in photographing the kind of phase differences that the visual filter users recorded for Venus. Ultra-violet light photography by Rackham and, latterly, by Hiscott succeeded in showing cusp caps and shaded areas of the Venus disc.

Mercury was neglected by many amateurs, but there were exceptions. In the mid-sixties Glasby's measurements indicated that there was no difference between the observed phase and the theoretical phase with Mercury, as there was for Venus, but the question was far from settled. Hedley Robinson believed that evidence for a thin Mercurian atmosphere might be provided if temporary obscurations of the surface could be observed, but Mariner 10 later showed that the planet's atmosphere is incapable of holding particles in suspension. At the 1973 November 10 transit of Mercury Harold Hill observed the planet silhouetted in diffused H-alpha light when it was off the hard edge of solar disc.

During the seventies the Russian Venera spacecraft confirmed that Venus was a world of roasted rock and Mariner 10 showed Mercury to be cratered and airless. There was an impression during the late seventies that interest was waning in the inner planets. The Council of the BAA appointed a Forward Look Committee and one of their recommendations was the amalgamation of the Mercury and Venus Section with the Mars Section. The recommendation was adopted.

Upon his retirement in 1979, Hedley Robinson nominated Richard M Baum as Director of the new three planet Section. This was called the Terrestrial Planets Section (TPS). Baum faced having to regenerate interest and in order to succeed he delegated tasks to talented and motivated observers who were nominated as co-ordinators for each planet. Three section meetings at various venues fuelled new interest.

In 1982 a Minor Planets group was started in the TPS. By 1991 Baum had achieved his object. This was no less than the re-creation of the old natural Sections - a Mercury and Venus Section and a Mars Section. In addition a new Section had been created out of the TPS. This was the Asteroids and Remote Planets Section (1984). Three of Baum's co-ordinators became Section Directors themselves - Richard McKim, Mars - Andy Hollis, Asteroids and Remote Planets - David Graham, Saturn. In 1991 the TPS was disbanded. The Mercury and Venus Section returned, ninety-six years after its first formation.

Richard Baum has synthesised the observational record of Venus by focussing on each type of feature or phenomenon seen in the telescope.

In his role as assistant Director, David Graham looked back upon the visual record of Mercury and speculated upon the nature of the planet's bright and dark markings. Baum had earlier raised the possibility that observations of bright spots may have been sightings of bright Mercurian ray craters, first shown to exist by the Mariner 10 results. Graham attempted to correlate earth based observations with the Mercury hemisphere imaged by Mariner; and he suggested that some bright regions such as Phaethontias correlate with known ray cratered areas.

The inner planets challenge observers and telescopes. Venus and Mercury have a reputation for ''blankness'' that they do not deserve. Their visual appearance in the telescope still needs checking out. The elusive streaky disc markings of Venus, familiar to many dedicated observers of the planet, are doubted in some quarters.

The ashen light is still not free from uncertainty (its cause remains a mystery). Temporary limb and terminator changes are seen. And where Mercury is concerned the difficulties are many. Thus, the task remains, and there is room also for special work with the ccd camera.

J Hedley Robinson's call for closer co-operation and team work to attack the problems that confront us is relevant today.