Chairman Simon prised a few recalcitrants out of the Dickens Bar and welcomed 17 members and two guests, plus our speaker, to the Grand Hotel.
The room itself was so vast that he was but a mere pin prick in the distance and members had to turn up their hearing aids to full volume to listen.
The room was blessed with more bling than the Oval Office and President Trump Chairman Simon was clearly in his element. He welcomed Jay Hood, guest of Richard G and Martin W, Simon Doherty, guest of John W, and our speaker, Stuart MacDonald.
Mr White showed that his memory was still working fine with a word-perfect recital (NB: recital, not reading) of Table Grace. We were served with a tasty soup followed by roast beef and Yorkshire pud, etc.
John W introduced our guest speaker, Stuart, a fellow Scot. Having got over that difficulty, Stuart presented us with a fascinating talk, accompanied by many excellent slides, around the history of the development of the Grand Hotel.
Your correspondent does not aim to repeat the main components of the talk here, since if you were there you enjoyed some compelling insights, and if you weren’t you missed an excellent presentation. This was evidenced by the number of questions during and after the talk.
Simon gave the deservedly warm vote of thanks to Stuart. He then read out a report from the Secretary which was heavy on his recent health travails but light on Club business. The best joke of the night (low bar) came when there was discussion of Mr Shingler suing Mr Costello for breaking his femur on Runswick Beach. “It won’t come to court,” quoth Simon, “he doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”
Members were reminded by the Catering Officer of our next meeting, to be held on 19 November at Tops on Falsgrave, with a pre-prandial in the Tap and Spile. In the absence of the Sports Officer, Martin W mentioned the Rugby lunch at the Rugby Club on Saturday, 31 October, followed by watching Scarborough RUFC v Sandal. Contact Darren if you would like to go to the latter event.
Since the conveniences were inconveniently located at the other end of the building, down two big flights of stairs, past the snowman and Christmas Tree (yes, really), many of us had held on to our bladders throughout the evening. RTBI was quickly followed by a mass stampede to said facilities.
41 Club History Correspondent
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