Aden Dinner Club – A History

The idea of an Aden reunion in London was conceived, in Aden, towards the end of the 1949 season of The Aden Yacht Club. After the usual Sunday morning race, members – including GW Jones and J R Kynaston, the BAT representative for the Middle East – adjourned to the bar of the Union Club as usual.

The Union Club at Steamer Point. Note the semi-circle for turning gharries.

Lamenting over their drinks that many would shortly be leaving Aden for the UK, the assembled company came up with the idea of meeting up again back home. A reunion dinner was duly organised by Jones and Kynaston (Kyn) to be held at the Savoy Hotel, London. At that gathering a motion was put forward, and accepted, that the dinner should become an annual affair. And so the Aden Dinner Club came into existence in September 1949, Colonel Jones becoming its first Secretary until he handed the post on to John Norman in 1968.

Sir Bernard Riley was the first Chairman, and Kyn initially looked after the Aden end. A thriving membership was quickly found, and a venue sought (Col Jones having become dissatisfied with the Savoy Hotel!). The first Aden Dinner Club dinner was then held in July 1950 at the Rembrandt Hotel in Kensington. The meetings continued each July for a few years before being put back to September for convenience. The location was later moved to the Washington Hotel in Curzon Street, before the club finally found its present home at the Royal OverSeas League in St James’ (some time in the 1980s).

Aden Dinner Club Gathering 15th July, 1950 at the Rembrandt Hotel, London.

Current club member and former Secretary, Roy Downing, remembers formal dinners at the first two locations, followed by breakfast together in the morning. Roy presided over both of the club’s moves. The decision to switch from a dinner to a lunch, he says, coincided with the move to the Royal OverSeas League. It was taken as a result of a survey in later years, as it had become noticeable that members were finding it increasingly difficult to spend whole weekends in London.

And so the club has evolved, from its beginnings over fifty years ago into the Aden Dinner Club that we know in the 21st century.