Liverpool Press Club’s friends mark 120 years

The Friends of Liverpool Press Club are holding a reunion lunch to mark what would have been its 120th anniversary.

The club was the first to be founded in Britain, saw its heyday in the interwar years and closed in the late Eighties. But many former members have kept in touch and occasional reunions of the Friends have been organised. This year their annual lunch is to be held at the Holiday Inn in Liverpool city centre – a building which stands on a site that was home to the club in its glory days.

The 2003 lunch is being organised by former Liverpool Press Club president Graham Ireland, along with Alan Jones, who has been the driving force keeping the Friends together.

Ireland said: “The Holiday Inn stands on a site that the Liverpool Press Club occupied for 37 of its most illustrious years, when our premises were in St John’s.

“In those days, the Liverpool Press Club membership card was a greatly prized possession, not least because it was one of the few places in the city where you could legitimately buy a drink after 10.30pm.

“The camaraderie of the Liverpool Press Club was legendary and sadly those days are gone. But the spirit of the club lives on and we want to open up our annual lunch this year to all interested, working or retired journalists, in Liverpool and the wider North West.”