2005 Annual Dinner

The London Old Cryptians held their Annual Dinner at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Saturday 12 November, the day we beat the Aussies at Twickenham and Argentina at football. For those of you who don’t know it ‘The Cheese’ is a fascinating old pub in a little side lane just off Fleet Street. It was Dr Johnson’s local and was rebuilt after The Great Fire of London. It’s terribly old and has steps leading down stairways leading up and rooms and passageways leading here and there in a thoroughly confusing way. Very suitable you may think for an Old Cryptian supper.

John Goodridge, who by the way spent a full decade at school many years ago, organises these affairs and a splendid job he does. He started us off with the AGM. We discussed the idea of having a special do for the 60th Anniversary of the setting up of the London Old Cryptians just after the War. We’ve got a couple of years to go before this great occasion but it seemed a good idea to plan ahead. Nothing is yet set in stone, but watch this space, as they say.

We then moved into the dining room for the serious business of the evening. The motto of the club is “When we meet, we eat” or should be anyway. Food at “The Cheese” is really very good in a traditional way and just the thing for a cold November night; steak and kidney pudding, bread and butter pudding, excellent Stilton, that kind of thing.

It was somebody’s birthday and we had a good bellow at ‘Happy Birthday to You’. I found myself sitting opposite Reg Hunt (1961-62). What an amazing bunch we are! He, for instance volunteered to go on a Chinese language course during his two years national service. I’d heard of the Russian course, there was a programme about that on the telly recently. Brilliant people like Michael Frayne and Alan Bennett were on it. But Chinese!

After supper John introduced our speakers. Howard Allen was very funny on cricket, telling us of one Ahmed the Damned who having watched a game, announced that he had concubines to do that sort of thing for him. Reg Hunt told us of a book called The Lost Generations which is soon to be published. It is about the Old Cryptians who gave their lives in the two World Wars, and as some of us were arranging to be at The Cenotaph the next morning, this seemed a very appropriate time to hear about a book which many of us will want to have.

The Headmaster, David Lamper, ended the speeches with a very encouraging report about the progress of the School.

We ended the evening with a another good bellow, this time the School Song. I think it was Peter Bayley who pointed out at an earlier Old Cryptian supper that the opening words are really a lament for lost youth and that ‘Pio Cantu’ should really be written: “Pee! Oh can’t you?”

Floreat!

Roger Phelps (1942-49). Reproduced from The Cryptian 2006

Attendees:

John Crowe (1934-40)

John Goodridge (1940-50)

Alan Humphries (1940-45)

George Hopkins (1941-48)

Gordon Cove (1942-49)

Gordon Jones (1942-50)

Mike Logan (1942-53)

Roger Phelps (1942-49)

John Hall (1944-50)