I hope this finds you well and enjoying whatever season you may be in, although there has been little pleasure to be had in the recent British weather!

During the summer, Alison and I enjoyed a very agreeable trip to New York City with Richard Cairns and Simon Smith. All of us would like to grow an East Coast branch of the OBA and hope our visit has sown some further fruitful seeds. If you live or work there and have not already done so, please e-mail Fiona Aiken ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) with your contact details, so we can plan our next reunion.

Dear Old Brightonians,

I feel honoured to have been elected the President of the Association of Old Brightonians, although when David Gold asked me to put my name forward last June, my initial reaction was that I surely could not be eligible for the post, not having been to the College. David assured me that there were precedents for retired members of staff being elected President, and some quick research has shown me that the two very first Presidents were, perhaps not surprisingly, retired members of the Common Room. At least my thirty six years at the College have given me a distinct advantage over all my predecessors, in that I know personally far more former members of the College than any of them! Indeed it was a great pleasure for me to see so many familiar faces from the past at the recent OB Dinner, which was a fitting tribute to the many years of dedicated and multifarious service to the College of Philip Robinson.