My Life on a Plate

Never Look Back?

I was very interested in reader's comments regarding school reunions which seem to back up my theory that you love 'em or hate 'em. I suppose it depends a lot on the type of school you attended, the era you were at school and the sort of friends and experiences you had at the time.

I believe I've been very lucky in a lot of ways. I attended a Grammar School and much as I didn't like it that much, I made some wonderful friends and being a teenager in the sixties was something else. As happens, on leaving school friends drifted apart and I ended up barely keeping in touch with anyone.

A few years ago I received a phone call from a lady inviting me to a 'Now we are 50,' reunion. I had mixed feelings for sure, but so wanted to see who'd be there and what they'd all been up to in the last 30+ years since I'd seen them. I'll never forget walking into the hotel and seeing all those familiar faces. Of course, you notice how everyone has aged; I guess you get used to looking in the mirror every day and forgetting you've aged so much too! But the initial observations are soon forgotten as you realise these are still the same people you grew up with and basically, no matter what we've done in life, we don't change that much.

It was a wonderful evening and I have treasured memories and photographs of my first love from school with his third wife. (No, he never really settled either lol) Had I not attended that reunion I would not have been able to chat to him and catch up on things and when he died a year later my last memory of him would have been as a boy, not the man he'd become. It also enabled me to support and visit another friend in later years after he developed a rare form of cancer. He's quite well now, but had I not gone to that reunion, I probably would have known nothing about it.

Since then I've taken on the reunion organiser's duty. Through the website 'Friendsreunited,' I've managed to track down almost all my friends from school and we meet twice a year as a group to catch up. The winter meet is a small group of very close friends and very informal, the summer one is larger and we often have a surprise guest if some one who emigrated pays a visit to England at the time. I wouldn't miss them for the world, but I know there are people who decide to never look back to the past, or just don't feel comfortable meeting people after such a long time.

I sometimes meet up for a day out with some of the ladies from school too. lethomson 's remark that she hopes she's as funny as me in her fifties (No debates please - if Liz says I'm funny, I'm funny okay? It might be funny peculiar but that's another story) reminded me of something my friend Julia and I remember from school. Julia and I went to school together from being 5-15 and our birthdays are two days apart. She emigrated after leaving school but returned to England several years ago. The first time we met up after all those years we laughed over bottles of wine regarding a serious conversation we'd had in the chemistry lab aged around 12.

Anyone born in 1950 was always acutely aware they'd have just turned 50 as the new century dawned. Over our bunsen burners Julia and I decided we hoped we'd have kicked the bucket before then because 5O was SO old. Thank God we're still around to celebrate passing that milestone.