As you can hear in our recording below of Isaac Asimov, the 1984 BSI Dinner was highly entertaining. It started with a Dinner invitation that paid tribute to the 50th anniversary of the first BSI Dinner in 1934. Fittingly, this occasion saw “record attendance of enthusiastic Sherlockians from many nations and four separate continents.” Fourteen participants were invested and received their Irregular shillings. The proceedings sounded truly sublime. To wit, Julian Wolff reported in the Baker Street Journal:
“The programme was unusually interesting and included a great effort by Isaac Asimov, our Resident Genius, as well as eloquent talks by Bliss Austin and Robert Harris, both of whom recalled earlier days of the Irregulars. It was a contented lot of Sherlockians who left at the end of the dinner with cries of “Wait until next year!”
Dinner Details: January 6, 1984
The Regency Hotel, 540 Park Avenue, New York
Dinner Photo Information
Click on the above photo to see a larger version of it, and maximize your browser window to see the most detail.Key to People in the 1984 BSI Dinner photo (not available at this time)
BSI Honours List
Investitures:George Armstrong as Wiggins, changed to John o' Groat's
Frank S. Beckman as Lord Backwater
John Bliss as Mr. Francis Hay Moulton
Paul H. Brundage as Sir Charles Appledore
Robert Dinegar as Henry Ward Beecher
James O. Duval as The Battered Tin Dispatch-Box
Clifford S. Goldfarb as Fordham, the Horsham Lawyer
William C. Haunert as Ted Baldwin
John Lehman as The Danite Band
Bjarne Nielsen as The Veiled Lodger
Jeffrey Schwartz as Henry Baker
Daniel F. Thomas as Robert Ferguson
Edwin Van der Flaes as Victor Trevor
Bill Ward as Major Prendergast
* received Investiture at another event during the year
What is an Investiture?
Two-Shilling Award:
Ronald B. De Waal
Robert G. Harris
Philip Sherman
What is a Two-Shilling Award?
The Woman:
Eleanor (Mrs. William P.) Schweickert
What is The Woman honour?
"Stand with me here upon the terrace..."
(as named at this Dinner, not their year of passing)
Not listed in the 1984 BSJ report.
What is the origin of “standing on the terrace?”
Morley-Montgomery Award:
No awards were given from 1981-1995.
What is the Morley-Montgomery Award?
Reports on the Dinner
The Baker Street Journal v34 n1 (March 1984) pp. 39-40 (available in the eBSJ)List of 1984 BSI Dinner Attendees (not available at this time)
Recordings
Isaac Asimov at a BSI Dinner
Famed science fiction author Isaac Asimov tells a funny story about his recent triple bypass surgery and his thoughts about dying, then sings a song about Sherlock Holmes in this 8-minute vignette from the 1984 BSI Dinner. Asimov was invested at the 1976 BSI Dinner.
Click to play this recording
A recording of parts of the 1984 BSI Dinner is available at Harvard as part of the BSI Archive.
Related Material
1984 BSI Dinner Menu (digitized images at Harvard)Three pages. Cover, interior, and back. Two copies. Sequence 98-100 and 101-103.
Asimov, Isaac, Lyrics to the song he sang at the 1984 BSI Dinner (digitized images at Harvard)
One page. Sequence 104.
This page also includes the lyrics to a song Asimov wrote for the 1985 BSI Dinner.
Robinson, Robert, Toast to Mycroft Holmes (digitized images at Harvard)
Two pages. The second page is the 2007 cover letter to Julie McKuras, conveying the toast to the BSI Trust. Sequence 105-6.
This toast was written by Robert Robinson, BSI and was presented at the 1984 BSI Dinner.
Recollections of Isaac Asimov are mentioned in the BSI Trust Oral History Project interviews of Peter Blau, Glen Miranker, and Robert Thomalen.
Previous dinner: the 1983 BSI Dinner
Next dinner: the 1985 BSI Dinner
For an index to all BSI Dinners and photos, see our BSI Dinner Summary list.
The BSI Archive is located at the Houghton Library at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Archival material may be used by any qualified scholar, subject to the normal rules and regulations of the Library. For links to a detailed finding aid and related information, see our BSI Archive at Harvard page.
Page composed on 2/17/2016 by Tamar Zeffren
This page last updated 3/6/2016 by Andrew Solberg.
