The club of 1984. A walk down memory lane
Written and spoken by Tudor Rickards
10.45am, Monday 28 October, 2024
I am sitting in Bold Street Coffee (est 2010)
It’s one of a range of coffee shops and rather swanky bars which have replaced the West wing of the old Manchester Business School off Booth Street West.
I’m about to join the 40 year reunion of MBA graduates at what is now the Alliance ManchesterBusiness School.
Manchester has changed. Its Business School has changed. Goes without saying, I and the MBA grads have changed. Beyond recognition? I hope not.
I eventually find my bearings and locate the impressive facade, inside which I hope to find archeological evidence of its ancestor.
The usual mutual pleasures of recognition at a reunion. James has organised the event with military precision. He remembers something from one of my lectures. Postpone Judgement, he adds.
Glorious flattery. Thanks Charles.
We straggle in.
Another surprise. Our reception committee is fronted by an old friend, Lisa Sanberg. We have a clumsy consensual huggle. To the left of the reception area there is a spectacular mural in the Greco-Mancunian style representing Ascent of Man …Chester
Our conversations return to recollections of the titans in our shared time in the roaring eighties.
The competitions for the Goat, greatest lecturer, top in consulting earnings. The Prof who won the drinking prize for waking up one morning not remembering where he was or how he got there…
