History

1929 The Eastern Telegraph Company (ETC) merged with Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company (MWT) to become the Imperial & International Communications Company Ltd (I&IC).

1932 The Eastern Retired Officers Society (EROS) was formed in June by H.A. Lynn Robinson - 'to keep the unbroken friendships of the Eastern Telegraph Company'. In the autumn the Traffic Department started its annual reunion lunch.

1934 In order to stress the 'telegraph' business of the company's services by 'cable' and by 'wireless' I&IC became Cable & Wireless Ltd (C&W).

1949 The Government, under the prime minister Clement Attlee, nationalised Cable & Wireless Ltd and as a result the company was split into two segments: the 'international overseas' business and the 'national UK' business. The international overseas business was to be operated by Cable & Wireless Ltd and the national UK business by the Post Office. Within the Post Office the national UK business was known, and operated, as an 'international activity', which in 1981 became British Telecom. The 'international activity' comprised: The Central Telegraph Office (London), The London Branches (e.g. Broad Street, Charterhouse Street, Stock Exchange, Swallow Street and Parliament Street, etc), The Provincial Branches (e.g. Bradford, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Belfast and Dublin, etc), and the Beam Wireless Stations (e.g. Bodmin, Ongar, Doddinghurst, Carnarvon, Skegness, Dorchester, Grismsby, Bridgewater, etc). Those employees involved in these activities transferred to the Post Office and became civil servants with a non-contributory pension fund.

1963 Cable & Wireless Retired Officers Association (CWROA) was formed for the benefit of those former C&W staff who eventually retired from the Post Office and wished to 'keep their unbroken friendships' with their Cable & Wireless colleagues. These former colleagues were ineligible for membership of EROS.

1965 During the Spring, Charles Hardy and Lewis Payton inaugurated the annual Chief Accountants reunion lunch.

1967 EROS was expanded to include all C&W Ltd pensioners.

1978 EROS enlarged to include female pensioners, wives and widows. The Traffic Department and the Chief Accountant's Department annual lunches merged, due to the declining numbers of attendees to the separate departmental lunches.

1985 The name EROS was changed to Cable & Wireless Retired Staff Society (CWRSS).

1990 With the formation of the company-sponsored Cable & Wireless Pensioners Association (CAWPA) providing subsidised annual lunches throughout the UK, both CWRSS and CWROA were wound up.

1991 To satisfy the wishes of the former members of CWRSS and CWROA to continue their 'unbroken friendships' the 'EROS Luncheon' and the 'Meadowbank Luncheon Club' (MLC), were formed. The EROS Luncheon to hold, each spring, an annual lunch at the Commonwealth Club, London and the MCL to hold six lunches each year in New Malden, London.

2001 The venue for the Traffic & Accounts reunion luncheon moved from the restaurant in Mercury House to the Civil Service Club, Great Scotland Yard, London.