Stationers’ News / Page Five

THE Young Stationers reconvened the

Drones Club in Stationers’ Hall on the 3rdNovember, hosting a Jeeves and Wooster charity drinks for the Lord Mayor’s

 Appeal with the Young Pewterers.Hall surged with constables, curates,

mustard-check waistcoats, taxidermedmooses, and aunts bellowing to aunts like

mastodons across a primeval swamp.

Some 150 Drones made their way 

 valiantly through seas of gin martinis andcakes. Festing them well on the eve wereBrian Eastman, producer of the ITV Fry 

and Laurie series (who held his weddingreception in Hall), and Robert Daws,telly’s Tuppy Glossop. Both hope to bim-

ble along for some jolly ‘what ho’ with theDrones soon.

The evening’s co-hosts, Miss Eleanor Mason Brown from the Young Pewterers and Liveryman Pádraig  Belton from the Young Stationers, prepare to foist  prize Bolly upon the victor in the Best Dressed Drone stakes. Judge Dr Eileen Walsh awarded the prizebottle to Dr Cressida Ryan, who ventured fromOxford dressed as Honoria Glossop.

 Runner up Best Dressed Drone, Liveryman Robert Sanger, adjusts his monocle. Receiving the prize, he confessed he had not known the evening was

 fancy dress.

 Jeeves & Wooster, What Ho! Quizzical Victory 

REPRESENTING the Stationers’

Company, the Young & Stationery teamcame first in the fourth annual QuizAid atSt Bride’s Church, in support of ChristianAid. The team comprised Miss

Madeleine Clements, Miss Suraya Jina,Miss Chantal Hadley, Oliver Linch,Graham Jones, Dr Alun Harris and

Liveryman Pádraig Belton. The pictureshows the Venerable David Meara, Rector of St Bride’s, presenting members of the

team with a fine bottle of bubbly.

 Wooden SpoonTrophy 

THE Young & Stationery team stormed

to a magnifent third place in the Inter-

Livery Croquet Competition in Surbiton

in June, bringing home a Wooden

Spoon trophy, now on display in the

Members’Room.

THE Company fielded two fearsometeams for the Society of Young PublishersQuiz Night in Camden in August: the

  Young & Stationery champions and theStationers’ Quizards, which included theClerk,   William Alden, and DeborahRea, Communications Manager. Neither team came last. The evening raised £1,000 for the Book Trade Charity.

Even More Quizzical

REPORTS have been coming in of theactivities of a new underground cell

  within the Stationers’ Company. It isknown by the codename, ‘Young &Stationery’. The group is believed to

be dedicated to the radical concept of ‘having fun’   – a serious form of sedition in some societies. Althoughthe Stationers’ Company has long been

known for its fine banquets and convivialgatherings, the new group is pushing thelimits through such dangerously subver-

sive practices as croquet, quizzes and

fancy dress masquerades.The ringleader is reported to be a

  young Liveryman, Pádraig Belton,dubbed ‘Master of the Revels’ by thepopular press. Not content with infiltrat-

ing the Stationers, he is said to beattempting to influence other Livery 

Companies, such as the Pewterers,under the guise of Inter-Livery coopera-tion. The Venerable David Meara, our 

Hon. Chaplain, and the Clerk, William

 Alden, have even been seen in hiscompany. As a service to our readers,

Stationers’ News has been gathering

evidence of the so-called ‘fun-loving’activities of the Young & Stationery movement. Here is a selection. You have

been warned.

 A Seriously Subversive Cell