Earliest Vintage Luncheon

On Monday 13th April, nearly 70 OMTs gathered at the Merchant Taylors' Hall for a lunch of Devon crab, roast duck, decadent desserts and fine Australian wine.  The Head Master spoke of friendship and fellowship, memories, and loyalty, stressing the importance of these notions to both the Old Boys and to the education that the School offers today. As an example of loyalty to present-day pupils, he mentioned the School's policy of not usurping earned achievement by "parachuting in" sportsmen from outside at the Lower Sixth level. Qualities and values such as these, coming as they do on top of the continued stellar academic results that the School achieves, underlie the remarkable affection for the place felt by the Old Boys in attendance, whose association with the School spans as much as seventy-plus years. 

Responding to the Headmaster's toast was the Master of the Company, Peter Watkins, who developed the themes of the value (and lasting enjoyment) to be had from extra-curricular engagement, and also described the work being done on a database of all alumni. He illustrated these points with a couple of very good jokes, albeit ones with tongue-in-cheek reminders of our mortality. But that is perhaps appropriate for an Earliest Vintage lunch.   

In his reply, Tony Wright, President of the OMT Society, told us of the plethora of OMT events and networks that now exist or are being built. Geographically, there seem to be more opportunities to link up than ever before.   

As a setting in which to catch up with people you may not have seen for decades, however, nothing beats the magnificence of this location. The Company kindly provides access to the splendid rooms all around the Courtyard and Cloisters, and the luncheon itself is in the Great Hall with its forty-foot ceiling and organ gallery.

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