50th ICT Anniversary Dinner

8th October 2025

Puckrup Hall, Tewkesbury

Emma Hudson

 Emma Hudson

Technical Director

The 50th anniversary was a time to celebrate and all guests obliged. We had the pleasure in welcoming both new and old members of the industry to the evening and it was the perfect opportunity to reminisce and share stories but also to make new friends and create stories for the future.
The highlight of the evening was our after-dinner speaker, Bill Wilkie, who did a stunning monologue, from memory alone, recalling companies, personalities and amusing anecdotes from the past. What Bill didn’t realise was what was to come after he’d finished speaking. The ICT wanted to celebrate Bill’s contribution to both the ICT and the industry, so up stepped Richard Wood-Roe with a very moving speech toasting Bill’s achievements and dedication to the ICT. Richard went on to present Bill with an engraved decanter and a quaich, the traditional Scottish friendship bowl, along with a bottle of something less traditional (a bottle of Scottish gin) to complete the presents. This wasn’t the end of the presentations though, with the new ICT Chairman, Mat Beadel, going on to present Bill with an Honorary Fellowship of the institute.

More membership certificates were presented by Mat, recognising service to the industry and the institute, including an Honorary Fellowship to Pete Starkey. We made several existing members Fellows and welcomed some new Members to the ICT family. Although there was one certificate that I didn’t feel Mat could present and that was one to himself, as we welcomed Mat Beadel as a Fellow of the ICT. This was meant to be the end to the official proceedings, but Neil Martin had a slightly different plan. Not only was it the celebration of 50 years of the ICT but just a few days before Mat had been celebrating his own 50th birthday. Neil worked with the hotel staff to produce a small birthday cake with an electronic candle (no real candles allowed in the hotel!) and we finished with a round of Happy Birthday to Mat, a perfect way to celebrate the last 50 years.

Conversations carried on for several hours after the formalities with several of them revolving around the collection of Circuit World magazines, the forerunner of this Journal, that Steve Payne had brough to share with the group, some real blasts from the past.

Thank you to everyone that helped make our 50th anniversary such a pleasure to attend and I look forward to reaching our 60th and having another celebratory dinner.