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Friday 18th May
Old Oswestrians

OO 600th Anniversary Dinner, The Reform Club, Pall Mall, London

On Friday 18th May 2007, some 190 OOs donned best bib and tucker and assembled in the Smoking Room of the Reform Club, Pall Mall, London to celebrate 600 years of Oswestry School.

The venue is steeped in history.  A gentlemen's club, founded in 1836 by Edward Ellice, a Whig whip, for members of both Houses of Parliament, as a centre for the radical ideas which the Reform Act represented.  It appears in Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days"; the protagonist, Phileas Fogg, a member of the Reform Club, sets out to circumnavigate the world on a bet from his fellow members, beginning and ending at the club.  Recently, Michael Palin, in imitation of his fictional predecessor, also began and ended his televised journey "Around The World In 80 Days" there.

Amongst its membership today are Old Oswestrians Judge Bruce Morgan and Denis Inchbald who addressed the ensemble before dinner.  Denis spoke of his recollections of Oswestry School between the two great wars . . . when the school had eighty pupils . . . School House contained 90% of the whole school . . . the governors included one major-general, one colonel, two majors, one MP for Oswestry, one earl, two lords and a bishop . . . and sporting activities including evening runs around 'The Triangle'.

Guests dined in style in two separate rooms, the Library and the Strangers Room.  A lavish five course meal complete with wine was enjoyed as guests 'table-hopped' to catch up and reminisce with fellow OOs, most of whom had not seen each other for many years.  Pupils spanning nearly eighty years of Oswestry School education were present, with the oldest being Syd Bailey (1928) and the youngest represented by the Head Boy, Alun Morris, who proposed a toast to the Society from the School.  A number of members had travelled from overseas to join the fun, including from Mexico (Paul Longshaw), Australia (Len Bowen), Zambia (James and Ros Kearney), USA (Charles Chantry and William Cleary), Switzerland (Jonathan (Des) Morris), Pakistan (Saleem Khan) and Italy (Philip Williams).

Carriages were taken, unwillingly by most, at 11.00pm due to the rules of the Reform Club, however, some of the OOs staying at the Reform Club were spotted returning at 4.00am!

It was the consensus that an Annual London Dinner should be reinstated.  Watch this space . . . . .

Photographs

Photographs of the evening were arranged through Mike Bracegirdle OO.  Visit his site MRB Photography and access using password DAVIDHOLBACHE (Note CAPS and no spaces) if prompted.