11/06/2026
Regular followers of our social media and website will be aware of our popular Masters Diary series.. Well for reasons described below and for one day only I bring you the.....
Clerks Diary!
It is custom within the City for Livery Companies to extend hospitality to each other in order to develop and maintain the bonds of fraternity and friendship. This hospitality is normally extended to the Master and the Clerk and it is convention that a Clerk only accepts IF the Master is also attending. However, the Drapers Company made the point of extending the Initiation to Clerks to attend even if the Master could not. Sadly Master Jonathan Pears is out of the Country on business and so dear reader it is down to me to provide you with a diary entry.
As The Master Draper reaches the end of their year they host this lunch to say thank you to the Companies who have hosted him or her throughout the year.
We were welcomed to the magnificent Drapers Hall (surely one of the finest in the City) by the Master Draper and local Leicester Man Patrick Bedows. Enjoying some very pleasant champagne I caught up with a variety of fellow Clerks and the crop of this year's Masters. Much of the talk revolved around the recent Masters trip to Bournemouth and unheard tales about our Master not making the early morning swim due to his friendly nature and generous hospitality in the bar the previous night.. Scandalous rumors I am sure!
Seated at the top of the middle Leg I was, of course, on my best behaviour! Seated with the Clerk to the Educators and Architects along with a Past Master Draper we enjoyed a robust chat about how we ran our companies in different ways to meet the needs of our members and I enjoyed finding out how Drapers manage their Almshouses. Pleasing to see the Xmas Party with the Master seems to be universal!
With in-house caters Drapers did not disappoint with a delicious meal served, rare for a Livery Dinner it featured heavily on pork, which your resident pig farmer gave his seal of approval to. The dessert of Paris-Brest was spectacular to both look at and taste and was paired with Pol Roger as an enjoyable change from dessert wine.
Speeches were excellent, and more importantly for a room with so many Clerks present, well within the established 7 minutes rule!! The Master Draper singled out our Master for his supply of socks to the Masters Weekend and passed on his thanks for the generous hospitality he has experienced this year.
A wonderful lunch and the train back to Grantham provided just enough time for what I called in my previous life a good 'combat kip'!!
