This year’s London dinner, our 52nd, was held at The East India Club in St James’s Square. We are grateful to Ken Holmes (Athens, 1945-1950) our unofficial Benelux representative who sourced the venue and was our host for this event. The dinner was attended by a full house of 80 diners, the second highest number of attendees at a London dinner. Pre-dinner drinks were in The Clive Room where we were given the opportunity to catch up with old friends whilst admiring the paintings of India in the times of the Raj.
We made our way to the Luncheon Room and sat down to what can only be described as a fantastic menu; cream of mushroom soup with garlic croutons, braised steak in beer with vegetables and golden syrup suet pudding with orange custard, all washed down with some delightful Bordeaux and Claret.
Derek Impey our President then gave a brief résumé of the year, the initiatives that the OSA is involved in and how enjoyable his year in office had been thus far. The usual toasts were taken during the meal with our oldest and youngest being Amos Chilver (Tuscany, 1937-1944) and Hannah Stalley (Tuscany, 2008-2010). Ken Holmes then gave us a history of The East India Club before handing over to the recently retired Martin Stansfield who regaled us with humorous stories from his 39 years as a member of staff at the School.
Once the formal proceedings had finished we were then able to retire to The American Bar which was kept open until late for us to carry on the reminiscing until we either had to head home or move on to somewhere else to sample the delights of The West End.
The list of members attending the Dinner can be found here.