Last week, members of our BEng graduating class of 1973 celebrated 50 years as Imperial alumni with a meet up at the Union Bar.

Peter Cheung, former Head of our Department and current Head of the Dyson School of Design Engineering, shared a photo of the group together with a Biochemistry PhD student who was serving up the drinks.

Except during the COVID pandemic when they had to catch up via Zoom, members of the group have managed to meet up in person every year since 1974.

This year they moved their traditional January meeting to the spring, with 20 of the class making the trip back to Imperial for their golden anniversary reunion, the furthest travelling from Munich.

Most of the former classmates are now retired, either from engineering careers at companies including Philips, Plessey and GE, or as consultants, and several have worked in the UK defence sector. Peter's twin brother Paul also pursued an academic career.

Class rules

Peter explained that they have managed to stay in touch, before the internet and email made this easy, through a simple algorithm devised by Martyn Hart, who was their class’s social secretary at the time. Martyn set up the following rules:

1. We shall meet first Friday of the year at The George pub, Fleet Street, London at 6.30pm, subject to the following two exception rules.

2. If the first Friday of the year is 1st of January, The George will be closed. Therefore we shall meet on the second Friday of the year.

3. If the George is closed for whatever reason, we shall meet at the first pub coming out of The George and turn left.

We love hearing news from our Imperial alumni, so please do get in touch if you've any special events and celebrations you'd like us to share.