Personal Postscript

At the Golden Jubilee Dinner in 1931 the 'Toast List' comprised twelve names, including D. S. Branson, happily still a Past President. Presumably there were therefore twelve speeches, as well as 'sundry interludes for Music etc.'.

As H. S. Altham said in a speech at the 75th Anniversary of the Corinthians and Casuals Football Club in 1958: - "Not very long ago I heard a distinguished judge refer to a colleague's reaction to an invitation to make an after-dinner speech as 'the avid acceptance of yet another opportunity to enlarge the already large area of his self-esteem'. If there was at any time any danger of a similar reaction on my part, when you were good enough to ask me here tonight, it was sharply corrected as I read Jim Swanton in a recent article, 'Speeches at sports dinners are tending to become shorter, but my goodness how we still suffer!"

I hope that I have not followed the judge's path, but the research into this history has given me tremendous pleasure, as well as many moments of nostalgia. I am confident that the Centenary Dinner will make no-one 'suffer'.

David Wilson