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St
Nicholas Old Boys
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"My God they've aged badly!" was
my first thought. Our year was having a reunion at the
Breakspear Arms pub. "Hang on, that's not them
that's a bunch of ageing, gay bikers" was my next
thought. Sure enough a peep round the corner
revealed......Jim Wilkins! He looked in great shape and
had achieved the extraordinary result of growing
massively taller since he left school. Otherwise though,
he was exactly as I remembered him.
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In
fact pretty much everyone was just how I
remembered them, though a few had gone on to wide
screen vision. Some I had met at previous
reunions and some I hadn't seen since the day we
left school, yet within half an hour it was like
any other day at Haydon, meeting up with your
friends and swapping gossip on whoever was out of
earshot.
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This
was my third reunion. At the first I was happily married.
By the second I was going through a horrible divorce and
at this one I was happily married to wife number two. I'm
not sure it is safe to attend a fourth one. Still I
wasn't alone. I'm told we were a pretty good year for
sport, an exceptional one for being sociable and average
academically. To these core competencies we can now add
highly skilled at multiple marriages. Well done year!
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As a
life long teetotaller I got to watch my classmates as
they got thoroughly pissed. As a year we make very
amiable drunks (especially some of the girls, you know
who you are!) [Would that be Angela McGrath? -Ed]. Like
any reunion as the evening wore on out came the stories
of who once snogged whom at the Interspin Disco.
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The
teaching profession was represented by John Hawley. I was tempted
to throw him a question on the underlying strata of the
Cheviot Hills but instead had a very pleasant chat about
his retirement. It made me realise that with a few
notable exceptions, we were lucky to have such great
people as our teachers.
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I can
hear you saying names, names, give me gossip! Well if you
were there you got the gossip, if you weren't then more
fool you. A few snippets of information just to let you
know how we are progressing as a year. Sean Cunningham is
now Chief Inspector of the CID for a large part of London
(God help London!), Chris Kendell is prospering as a
successful business man and won the "Posiest Car at
the Reunion" award. Author Catherine Ruhland
continues to provide inspiration to the aspiring writers
among us. Hasina Dharamsi (as was) now lives the life of
Reilly out in the States. Reilly (as in Gez) now lives
the same life but back here in Blighty. Jamie Cant still
has the most unlikely sideburns in London. I found him
standing at the centre of five or six beautiful women all
discussing why he has such weird sideburns. Didn't seem
much of a mystery to me!
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Anyway
that's a mere drop in the ocean of what went on. Make
sure you are at the next one but if you see me there
don't ask me how the divorce is going!
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SNOBs man on the spot: Graham Wheal |
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