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Old Clayesmorian Society Annual Dinner

Held at Simpson's- in-the-Strand, Saturday 24th January 2004

The OC Dinner was attended by the following:-

The President’s speech at the Simpson’s Dinner 2005

Some of you. I am sure; will have read the article the other day in The Daily Telegraph in which a journalist called Sam Leith wrote about Friends Reunited and the phenomenal success they continue to enjoy. It was obvious from his opening paragraph that Sam Leith is not one to maintain any form of contact with his former schoolmates- In his opening paragraph he wrote: "For many of us, there are few prospects on God's earth less appealing than that of a school reunion- in the long, futile escape attempt that we refer to as “life", consenting to join the "old gang" for a few jars at some long forgotten boozer - now inevitably a Wetherspoon's - is the automatic equivalent of landing, quite deliberately, on Go To Jail.

Why on earth would you want to spend time with people who remember you from before: people who knew you when you were ginger-haired, or happy?” And so it goes on in similar vein for no less than about 51 column inches.

The turn out tonight of OCs either proves Sam Leith and his theories wrong, or it says a lot about Clayesmore, and I like to think it is the latter.

It was some 80 odd years ago, in the early 1920s, when my father, who was at Clayesmore between 1908 and 1916, together with a few of his contemporaries got together and decided that it would be an idea to form a society which would enable former pupils to keep in touch with each other. Thus was formed the Old Clayesmorian Society and we have kept it going now for over 80 years, and the Society seems to be going from strength. We have always been independent of the school and it is my fervent hope that this situation will continue. I recently asked John Grant to let me see a copy of the OC Register and he offered to send it by e-mail-I suggested to him that so far as I was concerned 'snail mail’ would do, but seemingly this part of my e-mail did not get through, or was not understood, because the next thing I knew was that I received an e-mail from John, with the symbol indicating that there was an attachment. I thought I should open this and print it, and 55 pages and a lot of paper and ink later I had the list. A quick reckoning suggests that we now have something approaching 2750 members.

A few weeks ago I was pulled up short when I received a letter from Nick Zelle in which he reminded me that it is sixty years ago this year since I left Clayesmore. Along with his letter Nick enclosed a list of names and last known addresses of a number of OCs, who according to the records, had all left in the same year. He asked if I would be prepared to make contact with my fellow old farts, and suggest to them that we might commemorate our diamond jubilee by gathering here at Simpson's this evening.

I am delighted to say that we had a really positive response with the result that there are about ten of us here tonight. From the list that Nick sent me I knocked off the ex-pats living in the US, Australia. New Zealand etc., and this left 29 of us, about a third of whom are here tonight, and anyone involved in marketing will tell you that this is an exceptional response to a mail shot! By no means have all the others ignored my letter, and were it not for exceptional circumstances our group would have been even larger.

Amongst those who have sent their apologies are people like Keith Hall, who at this moment is on his way to New Zealand. Greg Ryan is on a pre arranged visit to a timeshare apartment in Madeira and there I have put him in touch with Dick Denning, who has now moved to Madeira after retiring from a lifetime involved with shipping. Actually Dick phoned me the other day from what he described as mid-Atlantic and we had a long chat about who would, or would not, be here tonight and he sends his best wishes to you all. He followed this with an e-mail with his name, address, phone number etc., in Madeira and then to cap this, phoned again on Thursday to check that I had received the e-mail! David Crossley, a former head prefect, has written from the Isle of Skye to say that were it not for an expensive 1500 mile round trip he would be here. Someone else who couldn’t come has very kindly sent a most generous cheque to the OC Society and the committee is now considering how best to use this.
Looking through the list of OCs of the 1945 vintage it is interesting to see the career paths they have followed. For instance who would have believed that one who had failed his Higher Certificate, not once, but twice is now an MA (Cantab). After he left the Army, this chap, Donald Cameron Brown, became a Benedictine monk, and on entering a monastery expected to see little of the world. How wrong he was. He became the Abbot of the famous Prinknash Abbey in Gloucestershire, and held this position for 12 years. He then had oversight of 13 Benedictine monasteries world wide, travelled widely in New Mexico, Colombia and elsewhere and has visited no less than 48 Tibetan monasteries in exile in India.

Other OCs have obtained eminence in their chosen professions. One of tonight's absentees became a QC and others have become eminent in the medical profession. There was one man who became the head of dental services for the British Army and retired in the rank of Major General. Looking through the register I marvel at the range of so many and varied other careers followed by OCs over the years.
You will realise that we were all at Clayesmore through the war years, and because of the war the teaching staff were inevitably a bit of a mixed bag. Many of the younger members were away serving in the forces, and of those we had some were too old to serve and others were certainly a bit weird! For instance I recall a certain Doctor Bateman, who had I think graduated from the Sorbonne and I have a mental picture of this guy with a strange multi-coloured scarf- a bit like Doctor Who, as played by Tom Baker.

People did well from Clayesmore, in many ways in spite of rather than because of the way things were, and undoubtedly we owed a great deal to the school. It is astonishing the way in which this comes through in the letters I have received in the past fortnight. People have expressed true affection for the school. The fact that so many people come back to these annual dinners, sometimes in excess of 100, says a great deal for the school and this is certainly contrary to the views expressed by Sam Leith which I mentioned earlier. I know lots of people who went to other schools and I can't think of anyone who goes to a dinner like this or who tries to keep up with their former fellow pupils.

We are delighted to know that the school is doing so well and in fact going from strength to strength. I am sure that we have all been interested to see the Clayesmore Annual Newsletter which landed on our doormats on Thursday and to read in this about just how things are going. I always look with interest at the league tables published in the press and am pleased to see that Clayesmore is gradually ascending the table. On behalf of the Society I must also thank the Headmaster for the separate OC update enclosed with the Newsletter. You will have noticed his appeal that OCs should write to either the Headmaster or Roger Denning with their news. Please feel free to do this; but please also do be sure to keep in touch with Nick Zelle, who is the editor of OUR newsletter. In addition to Nick, keep in touch with Hugh Thompson and John Grant, who is the chap who does a fantastic job of keeping the OC Register up to date. They would all welcome your news direct, but if you only want to contact one, make it Nick and I know he will keep the other two up to speed.

Some ten years ago we had a gathering at Iwerne to mark the fiftieth anniversary of VE Day, and only the other day, looking at the programme, I was interested to see a note to the effect that on 27th March 1940 Evelyn King had applied for membership of the Headmasters’ Conference. This application was obviously successful, but then; for whatever reason, at some date after that the school ceased to be members and spent a number of years in the wilderness. That situation has now been reversed and I know that we will all wish to congratulate Martin Cooke on his recent election to the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Association. This recognition of the school's improved standing in the educational world is wonderful news and meeting the criteria laid down by the HMC for membership must be a cause for delight for not only the staff; the School Council; for parents; present and prospective, but also the pupils, past and present.

On this note I will close, and ask you to rise and drink a toast to Clayesmore, and with this, I of course couple the name of the Headmaster, Martin Cooke to whom I repeat our warmest congratulations.

David Anderson (President). (42-45)

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