After an enforced two year break because of Covid, Lerpoolians once again gathered in their favourite abode of the RAF Club, London for a memorable night. In one of many "firsts", we had the pleasure of welcoming three Huytonians to the dinner now that the administration of their alumnae society has merged with The Lerpoolians. 

Pre-dinner drinks were served from 6:45 pm with dinner commencing at 7:45 pm. We were pleased that Hannah Cassidy (deputy Principal) could join us as well as Brian Donnelly. Sadly, Stephen Brady was not able to join us as planned. (we look forward to many more staff members joining us in future years.)

The evening started with this year's Head Boy and Head Girl (Jan Maciejewski and Mercedes Keto Bouesso) sharing the duties of saying the School Grace.

During the course of the evening, Nigel Moss called The Roll.

Nigel also declared the leavers of 2018 the best attended year and rewarded them with two bottles of champagne. (Class of 1972 got a runners-up prize for trying to cheat by including the Old Huytonians.) [Should we even be discussing ladies' ages? - Ed.]

Once dinner was out of the way and The Loyal Toast declared, we enjoyed three interesting, illuminating and humorous speeches.

First up was our guest speaker Alan Blair (1980) with a few recollections of his time at school followed by an insight into his new role in Jersey.

After Alan had proposed a Toast to Liverpool College, The Principal, Hans Broekman replied giving a brief synopsis of some recent College achievements.

We then enjoyed a few words from Jan and Mercedes which were inspiring and very well received.

Rog Peach (1981) then gave a brief (and energetic) speech, pointing out that the new website and membership database had admirably coped with the logistics or organising the evening. More importantly, he used his speech as a rallying cry to what else the site and The Lerpoolians had planned for the future and how all Lerpoolians could become involved and help.

A final discourse came from David Newcomb (1989) in his role as Sweepstake Organiser extraordinaire. Despite much good-natured heckling from the room, David announced Tom McConnell (1981) as the winner of the £40 sweepstake Guess the time length of the principal guest speaker's speech.

As ever, Iain Blair (1978) held the evening together with his usual panache. Thereafter, everyone retired to the bar for the rest of the evening.

Catherine Stafford (2004)  at just after midnight organised us to sing a rousing version of Happy Birthday to her Dad, Chris Stafford (1972), to kick-start celebrating his 68th Birthday and for some inexplicable reason, we were gate-crashed by a gentleman serenading us with a tune upon his set of bagpipes (if you can call any bagpipe tune a serenade).

Of particular note was the number of younger alumni present who seemed to enjoy themselves immensely. Apart from winning the "Most represented Class of" award, they easily won the most represented decade. Can the younger alumni win it again next year, as well? If you want to challenge them, make sure you sign up, and bring your friends along with you, for 2023's dinner.

You'll find many photos taken in the evening in the accompanying photo album including the Survivors' photo validated at 3.30 am as well as a brief video montage covering various parts of the party.

For those of you who have attended this dinner in previous years, please send us any photos you might have and we will insert them into the correct photo album. Please make sure you tell us which year they belong to. You can send them to  contact@thelerpoolians.org.uk

We would love those who attended the evening to add their thoughts and memories of the evening in the Comments section below.

Floreas Collegium!

Click below to download a PDF of attendees. Principal & Vice-Principal not listed. Includes 3 Old Huytonains and also those scheduled to attend but for one reason or another could not make the actual event.

London Dinner 2022 attendees