Page 7 - PBCJuly2013

Pickwick Bicycle Club Magazine. Volume 10 No.2 July 2013
7
The President’s Luncheon. Thursday 9th May 2013.
There isn’t a great deal I am able to report about the recent President’s Luncheon for, a I said
in the Editorial, I missed it, for the first time in more than 37 years, and few have come back
with much to say other than, it was most enjoyable and the speaker was superb!
One can glean from the menu that the trumpeters were once more from the Life Guards and so
their faces were seen, rather than last
December’s Coldstreamers hiding behind
their Bearskins! They did, of course, herald
the entrance of the President , easily
recognisable in his chain of office (or you can
use your bar-code scanner on this jacket to
find his name) accompanied by his body
guard in the shape of Geoff Miller, former

England
cricketer and
current
selector, he,
later, to
propose The Immortal Memory and the Pickwick Bicycle
Club. (Which, by all accounts, he did with considerable
aplomb (?) and amid guffaws of laughter).

Actually, there were gasps of surprise at the start of the
proceedings when the ‘Original Member’ arrived, not
wheeling in his high-wheeled mount as usual, but actually
mounted on it and negotiating, with great skill, the pathway
between the tables ! Absolutely amazing and the invitation
to join the gathering was well and truly deserved.

It appears that there were only 350 members and guests
present at the Luncheon, - oh, so few!

A suitable and well prepared range of dishes were served, some special toasts were made and
drunk. Chelsea Pensioners wheeled in the Punch (I am told). Your Secretary, Past President
Serjeant Buzfuz, welcomed the new members, inviting them to stand, one at a time, to learn of
their election and the sobriquet by which they are to be known in future and the place they first
appear in The Papers. And, of course, to receive certain items of membership. They were: Mr
Blasher (Steven Bannington), Thomas Burton (Jim Straw) and George The Embarrassed
Gentleman (David Phizacklea )