City University graduates hold 50-year reunion

The ‘class of 1965’ has celebrated the 50^th anniversary of their entry to the first honours degree course in ophthalmic optics at City University London (pictured at their graduation).

The 28 graduates gathered from across the UK and as far as Australia for the two-day reunion at Kilworth House Hotel in Leicestershire (pictured).

Among them were two professors of optometry and six women who had brought up families, as well as having careers in the consulting room. Four had been AOP Councillors and several had been at the forefront of clinical advancement and owned their own practices.

The course was recognised as the start of a new era for the profession and all expressed their appreciation of the quality of the course provided by the staff at City University London and what was then the London Refraction Hospital.

Unfortunately two of the graduates have died in the past year, Oliver Campbell-Leith and Michael Banes. Former AOP director, Robin banks, told OT: “Michael was a much loved, pioneering senior staff member at Moorfields Eye Hospital and a College Council member.”

The close-knit year “who rarely missed the opportunity to party,” are now planning a 50th graduation anniversary reunion for 2018.