“You
must be mad,” said my husband when I told him I was going to a reunion at my
old school. “I can’t think of anything worse.”
He had a point, of course. The idea of meeting up with pals from your youth more than a
quarter of a century later is weird - but curiosity got the better of me. That, and
a flurry of emails from friends saying they’d go if I did. One put it in a
nutshell. "It's so not my sort of thing and I keep looking in the
mirror and wondering if I can have some Botox or liposuction or just a designer
brown paper bag to wear," she said. "But if I don't go to this one I
probably never will, so it's now or never - and at least I don't need to bring a
Zimmer frame yet."
My
sentiments exactly, so I summoned up the courage and agreed to go. My
husband refused point-blank to come with me. “I hated school so why on earth
should I want to go to your school
reunion?” he said crushingly.
As I
trundled up the tree-lined drive in the rain I felt like a nervous 16-year-old
arriving at the place for the first time.
I was
worried I wouldn’t recognise anyone but actually, apart from a
few grey hairs and the odd bald patch (only the men!), no one had changed
much. It was a bit disconcerting to find that the new school head looked
younger than the rest of us put together, and that loads of the tough-guy rugby
players we all worshipped had turned into besotted dads, with toddlers trailing
round their ankles. But apart from that, and despite my husband’s doubts, I’m
glad I went.