UNTIL a few months ago I was unaware of the existence of an organisation called the YEWTGH club.
It’s like a Yorkshire version of SPECTRE, except a bit more secretive.
YEWTGH stands for Yorkshire Exiles Waiting To Go Home and is a dining club for ex-pat Tykes who live and work in London.
Previous guests include Geoffrey Boycott, Sir Ian McGeechan and Sir Gary Verity.
What I also didn’t know was that the club chairman is entitled to take the name of the Yorkshire-born monarch King Richard III.
So when I received an invitation to speak at the club from chairman David Wood, his email was signed: “King Dick”.
I have to say I agreed to the invite with some trepidation and explained to members at the dinner at the East India Club last Thursday evening, that I didn’t really know what I was getting into.
Given the monicker David uses, I thought perhaps I was being invited to speak to a group of retired Yorkshire-born porn stars.
And looking around the room… I told them that I thought I was.
They seemed to find that opening remark funny, although one guest pointed at me whilst patting his pinstripe-clad groin and said: “Oi son, less of the retired…”
Sitting on St James’s Square close to the In And Out Club and Chatham House, the East India Club groans with history.
It was here in 1815, when the building that houses the club was a private house, that Major Henry Percy presented the Prince Regent with four captured French eagle standards and Wellington’s victory despatch from the Battle of Waterloo. The news was then announced from the balcony to the crowds that gathered below.
I don’t think me arriving in my best Michelsberg suit complete with Welcome to Yorkshire yellow Y badge in the Milanese buttonhole created quite the same stir, but you never know.
The East India Club was founded in the middle of the 19th century with its original members “the servants of the East India Company and commissioned officers of Her Majesty’s Army and Navy”.
Walking past the huge elevator encased in a metal grille in the central lobby, I was directed to the club’s Canadian Room, so called because when part of the building was severely damaged by German bombs during the Second World War, shortage of supply of building materials and strict controls caused serious problems in rebuilding.
However the Canadian Army, whose officers were welcomed by the club during the war, came to the rescue and donated the necessary timber that was shipped direct from Vancouver and The Canadian Room and American Bar beneath it were named as a gesture of thanks for this act of friendship.
Whilst subscribing to this policy of friendship, members of the YEWTGH Club also display another approach so cherished in the Broad Acres: tough love.
After I arrived in the Canadian Room, I was asked if I would like a drink and ordered a pint of bitter, given that all the dinner attendees were male and Yorkshire born.
A pint duly arrived and David Wood, or King Dick as I now prefer to call him (whilst tugging my imaginary forelock), asked the waiter what the beer was.
Informed it was Fuller’s London Pride, he replied tartly: “Oh no, chuffin’ no way, haven’t you got owt from Yorkshire?”
Fellow club members chimed in with exclamations of: “Bloody terrible, chuffin’ disgrace.”
The word chuffin’ was used more times during the evening than in a whole series of Last of the Summer Wine.
One guest said mournfully: “The world’s gone mad when you can’t get a decent pint of Tetleys in the Smoke.”
I pointed out that Tetley bitter is now brewed in Northampton and the former brewery in Leeds is now a trendy arts centre serving skinny lattes.
As he turned around to wipe away a tear, I was beginning to think I had walked into the middle of a TV show sketch about Yorkshireman by Monty Python or Harry Enfield.
We sat down to dinner and I glanced at the menu.
York ham to start, followed by beef and Yorkshire pudding with Yorkshire rhubarb for dessert.
I was relieved to see the wines weren’t from Yorkshire too, with a very agreeable East India Club white Burgundy served with the starter, followed by the club’s hearty Claret.
David Wood was a warm and generous host and like most members, has probably spent more of his career in the South than in his home county.
He is a partner with FRP Advisory, which advises firms on corporate finance, restructuring, debt and pensions issues. The host of the dinner was East India Club member Chris Emmott and his colleagues from Hilco Capital.
Hilco specialises in investing in businesses that need restructuring and its current portfolio includes music retailer HMV, ceramics manufacturer Denby and the Staples retail chain which has since been rebranded as Office Outlet.
Among Chris’ portfolio is Denby and I told him that I once did work experience at Denby Pottery when I was a teenager in Derbyshire.
He told us that the business, founded in 1809, now has its largest market for its stoneware dinner sets in Korea.
“North or South?” asked David Wood (King Dick).
Following dinner I was asked to give a brief description of my career (never a problem to keep it brief) and then mention a few issues currently affecting Yorkshire before taking a few questions and then opening the discussion up to the rest of the attendees.
Highlights of my time in journalism included interviewing Lord Hanson, Sir Ken Morrison and Arnold Schwarzenegger, lowlights were being chased by the BNP, being run over by a golf buggy and being threatened with legal action by Ken Bates when he was chairman of Leeds United.
When it came to topics that are currently being discussed in Yorkshire, I highlighted the enormous imbalance in transport and infrastructure spending between the South and North.
While London and the South East has had the Olympics and all the investment that that brought as well as major transport projects such as Crossrail, the North is forced to make do and mend.
Only this week Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has indicated the Government will back the Crossrail 2 line under London while plans to electrify the cross-Pennine rail route appear to have been canned.
I told YEWTGH Club members that if the Northern Powerhouse strategy was to work then it would be because of the efforts of those in the North with little help from central government.
I thought I had made a valid and powerful point.
But I was mistaken.
Among the responses from guests were:
“What are they bloody moaning about up there?”
“What’s their chuffin’ problem?”
“This is where it all happens.”
Which just goes to show, you can take the Yorkshireman out of Yorkshire, but he’ll still be chuffin’ difficult wherever he is.
Guests did, however dispel the notion that Yorkshiremen are mean, making a generous donation to the Maggie’s Yorkshire cancer charity, whose board I sit on, as a kind gesture to thank me for being their guest at the dinner.
:::
ONE person not particularly enamoured with my appearance at the Yorkshire Exiles dinner in London was Harrogate-based corporate financier Tim Cottier.
He met up with David Wood for a drink in London this week and after hearing I had been at the dinner sent me the following message: “How do you qualify to attend, you’re from Derby and you work in Leeds. Bloody outrageous!!!!”
Normally the only things to exercise Tim’s ire are the mention of Jeremy Corbyn and the serving of rose wine at room temperature.
However, to try and ingratiate myself I have suggested he could be a speaker at a future dinner.
His subject could be the art of being a dealmaker and a bon viveur.
He would have to strike a balance given the amount of time he spends on both.
He could do 30 seconds on the former and the rest of the time on the latter.
Have a great weekend.