It is 60 years ago this year that I started secondary school due to the ability of social media it’s much easier to be found.
I’ve been invited to a school reunion at the end of next month so it’ll be people I’ve not seen for 50 years, one who will be there I’ve met a few times in the last few years. I’m very easy going but tbh I found him a PITA. I’d told another friend from then that I see quite often sometime back when this reunion was first mooted that I wouldn’t be going (he is away when it is on now so won’t be there).
I’m still in two minds to go or not to go. I’ve bought a train ticket and if I don’t go to the reunion I can always visit a friend’s record shop and go for a meal.
Have any of you gone to a reunion? Was it great or excruciating? (my wife went to one where there was a mass attempt to sing the school song) any recommendations on how to make an excuse to leave?
Nope. But that’s been because I’ve moved to different continents.
Would I?
Probably not. I wasn’t a member of any particular friendship groups, and went to two different schools from the age of 11, which contributed to me not forming strong friendships.
I’ve never been invited to one in the 40 years since I’ve left and I’ve never wanted to go to one. School was a miserable experience for me sadly. And I moved from the area as soon as I could and never went back apart from the odd family visits. I never kept in touch with anyone from school either.
Never been to a school reunion. Was invited once, long ago, but did not RSVP.
I don’t look back fondly on my school days. Was glad to be out of the place.
No excuses needed if you’ve gone to one and find it a horrible experience. You just leave.
Hmm, tricky business.
Didn’t go to one in 2018 but then I didn’t know there was one in 2018 as no one could find me to tell me. Subsequently, someone did get my number, and I’ve seen three ex-schoolmates since and enjoyed those occasions.
There presumably will be another in 2028 but I’m in two minds about it, and do have a ready-made excuse of being far away. I think I’d be more interested in talking to the girls than the boys (not in that tacky, having an affair sense), so maybe, yes… but then I’m quite proud of never having walked back through those old school gates in four decades.
I’ve never been to a school reunion and they stopped inviting me decades ago.
But I did meet up with two old school friends, for a meal in a pub, about a year ago. One of them lives Down Under and was over here visiting his parents, so it seemed churlish to turn down the offer, however reluctant I was. I don’t think we’d seen each other for 30+ years but we really hadn’t changed much.
It was nice to catch up on our lives and families, but when conversation turned to “do you remember that weird Geography teacher?” it was time for me to say “I’ve got an early start in the morning…”
I’d go again with them to a pub, but not to a big ‘do’.
My Best Man lives in Oz and I see him roughly every other year. I’ve known him since we were 18 and we just carry on from where we left off. That’s proper friendship.
As you say, it’s easy to find people who aren’t actively covering their tracks these days. If they’re was anyone you really wanted to find, or vice versa, you could probably do it without running into a lot of people you didn’t want to see. Add me to the list who did not find school days the happiest of my life.
I did. It was good fun, though i remain in contact with the best folk from the time already. Being “an odd boy”, I enjoyed being sharp to the classic 1970s PE teacher, who turned up, too. He seemed to not remember that we were not supposed to wear pants under our shorts. What was THAT about?
I’d have liked to have seen the headmaster, who didn’t seem to appreciate how hip n’ groovy I was (a kind of hippie Mick Travis in my mind), who told me I would never come to anything if I wanted to be different. I would have quite liked to have told him what a bad judge of talent he was, and that despite his clear discouragement, it all worked out pretty well. Sadly, the cunt died first.
I don’t really get reunions, at least from educational institutions. I am known as someone who is good at keeping in touch with people. When I left school, I knew there was half a dozen people that I wanted to stay in touch with, and I have. My life is quite full enough without having to feign an interest in people who, at the time, I clearly had little interest in.
I do have regular drinks with the blokes that I trained with in my current job. Our class bonded well, and I’m proud of my job and the industry I work in. But that’s not a reunion, is it? We all still live and work around Manchester, and have contact outside of the get togethers. That’s just called a social life.
Went once, about a decade after I had left, discovering I had even less in common with my peers than I had then. So, no ta, bar the novelty of guessing who all these old farts might be. Medical school reunions are bad enough, as most my then chums have become so dull and boring. Still enough reprobates, mind, to make it deleterious to my health.
What can be fun and pleasing is to discover hidden depths in folk you didn’t mix with back then, and the opportunity to show too my similar hidden shallows. A reminder of what bad judges of character young men can be to each other.
The only person I knew at school who I have any desire to speak to is still my best friend as he has been since I was 13. I have no wish to see any of the rest of them
Have kept in touch with few people from my school days, mainly because I moved away from my home town a couple of years after leaving school and my parents moved a few years later so no real reason to return.
Ironically, met up with 3 of my mates from school for a weekend in Amsterdam a couple of weeks ago (we left school in 1979). They all still live locally and one in particular has an encyclopedic knowledge of many of our school day contemporaries and their current whereabouts. There are a couple of people I regret not keeping in touch with, but I suppose if I had really wanted to then I would have?
Mine got a bit rough, soundtracked by Dave Wakeling
Never been to one, in the 6th form we were a gang of 6, one (an alcoholic) passed away when he was 42, the other 4 I am in touch with, some more than others. One lives in Detroit and we see each other every year, 2 of the other 3 I see just about every time I visit Wales, about every 2nd year in average
Fifty years since I left. They are mainly just people who were born in the same school year and lived in the catchment area as far as I am concerned. If they were actual friends I would still be in touch with them.
I’ve been to a good few over the years and I’ve found them quite enjoyable. It’s 43 years since we left school and there have been 5 or 6 over that time; the latest for the 40th anniversary. Regrettably some have been organised off the back of funerals.
From the earliest to the latest, it has been a recurring theme that none of my good friends from school have attended but it has been (mostly) nice to catch up with everyone else. Some have turned into arseholes but the majority are really sound grown ups however troubled they were as children. One individual who was bullied for being “different”, is now a flamboyant gay man and has become a regular drinking buddy on the back of catching up at these things.
As mentioned above, I had some good friends in school and have worked hard to stay in touch even during my 12 years away in London. Half of our year ended up in London or further afield as there was 90% unemployment in our area. It’s observable that many have come back as more rounded individuals.
I haven’t detected any one-upmanship or bitchiness at these events. What was great about the last one was the apppearance of 5 or 6 of our teachers from way back when. It was remarkable how much they remembered about our year/class. I’ve subsequently been to dinner with two of them and it was a great evening hearing about their lives and careers and just interacting as humans.
I get that reunions are not for everyone especially if you had a tough school life. Mine had plenty of being bullied and lots of great times. I’ve met many former thugs and bullies and to a man they’ve been apologetic and able to reflect on what bastards they were. I suppose that’s therapeutic in a way for both of us.
Me and a mate, who I’ve known since we were 11 years old, and with whom I’ve stayed in touch ever since, tried to organise a 50th anniversary of leaving get-together, and I put out feelers via the alumni organisation. But there was no interest. Possibly because our old school is way down in the south west of England, and most folk have moved a long way away from there by now, and possibly because I failed to generate enough enthusiasm with a half-hearted ‘anyone interested?’ online. Possibly also because neither my mate nor I have any truck with the Farceberk platform. And possibly because no-one was interested in meeting up with either of us again, as they had thought at the time that we were borderline weirdos anyway.
When we all turned 30 one of our school year arranged one. It was something of a sysiphean task for her given that we quite far flung by that time. Most of us turned up though. Me in tow with my best pal from that era and still close mates now.
What a damp squib. The dicks and the bullies still had that aura. We said mutual hellos and how are yous but just the eye contact alone was enough. There were a couple of pleasant surprises amongst it all. Some pleasant chats with a few individuals I had completely forgotten and others with some I hadn’t spoken to at all when at school.
But that was as far as it went. No new friendships made.
And, a few of our old teachers were there. Over time I have come to seethe at their memory.. I was shy at school and didn’t contribute much in lessons (though my written work was consistently top tier). Consequently I was pretty much ignored or disregarded by them. Compared to the teaching profession today who supported my equally shy daughter to great success (so far) the phone it in lazy twats who taught me shouldn’t have been anywhere near a school .
Anyway, most of them will be dead now.
Er, I hope that helps 🤦♂️
Only ever been to one, and it was a reunion at my wife’s old school, not mine.
After 2 or 3 rounds of being asked “and what class you were you in?”, my mate and I decided to invent a backstory, and picking up on a few stock phrases like “the day the science lab burned down” or “Miss x was a stuck up cow”, and throwing them into conversation.
The inevitable “and what do you do now” question arose – I was a Merchant Baker, and my mate worked for NASA.
Apparently we embarrassed my wife and her friend, but I thought it all went quite well
Girls can be so serious!
I went to one 30 years ago. Still recent enough for fading memories of factions and hatred to still stir a reaction when drunk.
It was truly awful and would never go to such a thing again.
Interesting subject.
There’d be about half-a-dozen people who’d not much care for my presence at such an event, all male – about the average I suspect – but one person (nothing to do with bullying on my or his part, just a jaw-dropping example of an appalling lack of empathy on his) who I never want to see ever again.
I guess my decision in a couple of years time will depend on (1) whether he’s there, and then, (2) if I could be bothered anyway.
If I could guarantee it would just be the females who attended, I’d go like a shot.
That said, it’s amazing how many comments from those above convey an extremely negative view of their schooldays. Sad, isn’t it.
Where was that @uncle-wheaty?
It was a Great Yarmouth Grammar School reunion in the early 1990s.
Ah, not The East Norfolk Sixth Form College then!
I’ve observed the reunion shenanigans of some of my old schoolmates from the safe distance of their alumni website. Would I join them? Not on your life. I don’t have any particularly bad memories of those days, but it was over 50 years ago and my glasses are probably now distinctly rose-tinted. I fear I would have nothing in common with any of them, and any attempt to reconnect would leave nothing but a nasty taste in the mouth.
I’d go for the record shop / meal combo instead.
This reminded me that there was due to be a reunion of all who left my school in 1986 this year – there’s one every decade, and the photos from the 2016 event made me feel sorry not to have turned up. I haven’t kept in contact with anyone from my school, because I didn’t have a uniformly great time there, partly because the two friends I did make left after O’levels and the ones who bullied me in the early years were there until the end. I was quite shy at that age, and I tended to keep my head down and avoid people, which is a shame, as I think they were on the whole good, if privileged, kids.
However the day it will happen, is 2 days before the start of the annual Bonn climate conference, so my time will be completely full of prep work.
I’m still in touch with my friends from that time. Never felt a strong allegiance to the school itself – but many do and reunions happen quite regularly, I believe.
I had a school reunion of sorts (just a big get-together in a pub) in 2016 and on two occasions that evening I really had to ‘fess up to the other person that I couldn’t remember them at all.
This was with good reason – the introducer(s) both assumed we MUST have known each other. On both occasions all parties (including me) initially feigned recognition out of politeness, until I cracked under the social pressure and came clean. One of them was relieved as they were in the same boat and I think the other one was too pissed to take it in.
What’s the wordt that can happen? Go, you might have fun.
I went to mine, but only because my old BF begged me to come as she didn’t want to go alone.
I hated school and was indifferent to most people in my class, and I wasn’t curious at all to know what had become of them.
This was organized by a company that specializes in these reunions, so it took place in a pub, we got served a terrible three course meal (which we had pre-paid) and the acoustics in this pub were so bad that talking to each other became both painful and difficult.
After dinner when the tables had been cleared away, the room became a disco – thank god!!! Dancing and not having to talk to former classmates was the only fun I had that night.
Oh, and a couple of memorably tone deaf comments by a really annoying girl (annoying back in school, really, REALLY annoying as an adult…)
One of the things she said – in a piercing voice that cut through the bad acoustics and was heard by Everyone – was so shocking and unexpected and embarrassing that I burst out laughing hysterically and couldn’t stop for five minutes…and her parting assessment of me as a child was so spectacularly wrong that it needed either a one hour refutation or to be ignored completely – I chose to ignore her as I didn’t want to spend another hour in her company…
But I did enjoy the disco, so my advice would be; if there’s a disco, go; if not, stay at home! 😀
Never have, but my late wife went to one at her school*. She was in her early 50s IIRC. When she got home she gleefully reported that a man and a woman who hadn’t seen each other for 30+ years were observed getting jiggy in the bushes. So you never know, Hubes.
*Bedales. It was that sort of place.
Quite popular with Quakers, I believe. Looking at the alumni, I’m wondering if the two in the bushes could have been Daniel Day-Lewis and Mary Ann Sieghart.
Or Gyles Brandreth and Princess Anne?
Now that I could believe*. Gyles always gives the impression he’s sitting on a lot of scurrilous stories that would lift up the stone on many previously unblemished reputations.
*if Anne had gone to Bedales, which she didn’t.
Well some Royal did. Can’t tell t’other from which.
It was probably David Armstrong-Jones: (2nd Earl of Snowdon).
Gyles and Kirstie Allsopp maybe?
There’s probably a location location location joke in there somewhere.
There is a slight drawback with that as I went to an all boys school. I’ve nothing against homosexuality I think at my advanced age I’m a bit late to start to take it up.
Never been to one and I didn’t really stay in touch with people was at school with as my parents moved from my home time whilst I was at Uni (they did tell me where they moved to) and so never really went back apart from the occasional visit to some family left there,
Plus, I have the excuse of being 7000 miles away.
Do they have Primary School reunions? I think I’d prefer to go to one of them.
A possible sub thread is work reunions. Having done mostly project work in my career where you get quite close to the rest of the team I wouldn’t mind catching up with most of the people I’ve worked with. There were a few arseholes but mostly I have pretty positive memories and three or four ex-colleagues have become lifelong friends. Come to think of it a reunion of my year at poly would be ok too. For some reason it’s school I would avoid.
Had a kind of work reunion last year. Went back to Zürich where I worked for over 15 years. It was a sad occasion as it was a memorial/wake for an Irish friend who had passed away at the age of 60. It was weird as I had planned to travel there that weekend anyway without knowing anything about what had happened to James. Met up with about 15-20 colleagues from all over the work who I had worked with mainly in the 90s. We always had a vigorous social life and we were straight back in on a good line and length, it was an amazing weekend despite the sad reason for it. We raised many glasses to James and now have a WhatsApp group, so it may well happen again at some point.
The only thing I missed when I retired was some of the folks I worked with. We were lucky that that we had a really good working environment and many got on very well.
Since retirement, I regularly meet up with a group of about 10 ex-colleagues (there are two that still work for the company!) for food, wine and whisky – at least every couple of months. With our busy retirement lives, we don’t always get the full complement, but we always get a quorum and the wine flows…..
I went to a primary school reunion, I think it was the centenary in 2007. I was 53, and my Dad, who’d been to the same school, was 81. We both went to our designated areas – 1960s for me, 1930s for Dad, and I met a few people who I remembered and had enjoyable chats probably fuelled by glasses of wine. After a while I became aware of this presence next to me, like when a small child comes to find you. It was Dad. There only a few of his cohort and he didn’t know or remember any of them. So sad. Poor old bugger. He was never the most sociable of people (a trait I have inherited), and he was so lost and helpless.
Then in 2012 there was a high school reunion, 40 years on.
“Forty years on, when afar and asunder
Parted are those who are singing today,
When you look back, and forgetfully wonder
What you were like in your work and your play”
as we used to sing in assembly
Sadly the day of the get-together dinner my Dad was taken ill and had to go to hospital. It was a dementia-induced stroke. For the next 4 years he lay in a bed unable to speak and showing no recognition of me or my Mum, his wife of over 60 years. So I missed that one, probably thankfully. Looking at the photos I was sent the few people I remembered looked dreadfully old and decrepit.
I have one more story. At the primary school reunion was a girl (well – Girl, You’re A Woman Now) called Alison. Back in 1960 I was deputised, at the ripe old age of 6, to “look after the class” while the teacher, one Mrs Bruce had to go somewhere. I sat in her chair at her desk. Alison came up to me with her “dictionary” – ie a notebook with alphabetised pages. Hers was open at letter J. “Giant, please Peter” she said, proffering said notebook. In a Trumpian blast of self-importance I said “giant doesn’t start with J” or something like that. She walked off, deflated, and I immediately felt terrible. As I did for the next 50 odd years. I related this story to her at the reunion. She thankfully had the grace to laugh and say she didn’t remember but thanks for the apology. Whew!
A couple of corrections to the last para
1. I was thinking of Neil Diamonds “Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon” but mis-remembered the title, which is I now see irrelevant to my anecdote.
2. It was 1961 and I was 7. Still appallingly pompous behaviour. I’m not like that at all, honest…
I went to one about 25 years ago at the height of the Friends Reunited craze. My marraige had just broken up and, I thought, what have I got to lose? I can always leave if its a bit shit.
It was held at the school and it was interesting going back to it. My old head of house was there and he seemed as nice as he seemed when I was at school.
By and large it was fine. A bit of hasn’t so and so got fat, so and so used to be so good looking and look at them now, where did his hair go etc.
There wasn’t too much look at me, I am a roaring success either.
I had two abiding memories though. The first was a women that I vaguely remembered chatting away and being animated and happy. She then saw another woman arrive and went silent and cold. She looked at me and said “There’s J. She used to bully me something rotten”. The reminder of bullying seemed to have surprised her and it was clearly traumatic.
The second memory involved a long and lovely chat with a woman who hadn’t even gone to my school but had accompanied a mate who had. A group of us decanted to a local night club (totally not my style) and a fine old time was had by all. At that stage of my life, it was a very real reminder of how getting out there and talking was going to be much better than staying home and brooding.
I suspect the above suggests that if you had a tough time at school, you probably don’t need to go. But if a bit of social interaction would do you good, go along. You can always leave if it’s not for you.
I went to one about 25 years ago for my primary/junior school. It was great fun, although I have always stayed in touch with my closest friends from that time anyway, and spent most of the time in the reunion talking bollocks with them. More recently a couple of old school friends came to Dad’s funeral.
Anyway, just do it, can’t hurt, you never know what might happen.
I’m still in vaguely touch with the small handful I wanted to keep in touch with, one I see fairly regularly, the others about once or twice a year, so I’m not bothered about seeing any of the rest. A reunion? Hmmm, I have been to one but I doubt I’d do another.
Can’t really imagine voluntarily attending a reunion. It’s ok to look back but you have to move forward.
Most of the people I went to school with have stayed local, in a town that never showed much interest in the outside world. It wasn’t for me, and I’ve no desire to go back and visit, because I know how the conversation will go.
Last year an old school friend got in touch. He’s had a terminal illness diagnosis while still in his mid 40s and doesn’t have long left, so he was trying to arrange a semi-regular gathering of people from back at school.
I have a terrible habit of running to help people in need, but on this occasion I demurred. We exchanged a few texts and I sent him lots of love and support but explained that I wouldn’t be joining the gatherings. Too far to travel, I’m too busy and (the bit I left unspoken) if I really wanted to be in touch with those people I already would be.
I’m not remotely the person I was when we all knew each other back then, and I’m sure that’s true for everyone else as well. The problem with reunions as a social gathering is that former selves hover over everything – you’re forced to play those outdated roles all over again because the alternative is to accept the even more uncomfortable reality; that you’re all strangers now.
Besides all of which – the world is absolutely chock full of fascinating new people. I would prefer to spend time and energy on them than on the folks I’ve already met and who didn’t stick. I prefer my strangers to be people I’ve not yet met.
I grew to hate my school and, despite sticking at it to get into uni, was thoroughly miserable through the sixth form. Part of it was a strong dislike for a bunch of dickheads who behaved badly and were allowed to get away with too much (and the headmaster was a thoroughly nasty piece of work). The school has long had a very active old boys’ association, but I’ve never wanted to go anywhere near it.
That said, I have a handful of old friends from the time, all of whom feel much the same as me about the place. Three of them meet I quite regularly and another, who lives abroad, I tend to catch up with once a year. There are a handful of people I would meet again if it comes up, but others I would actively avoid, and I’d never go to a formal reunion.
Well your replies have certainly given me food for thought, it’s not an official reunion someone is over from Australia then so someone decided it would be a good chance for a meet up. It’s in a pub (not now one of my favourite places to visit, mainly because of my hearing difficulties) during the day. @locust there will be no chance for me to cut a rug at a disco.
I suppose I could turn up fashionably late …… or not at all. I’ll probably decide on the day.
A story that came to mind about old schoolfriend. Some time in the nineties on the way to a Roy Harper concert we picked a pub friend up. As we drove on I pointed to a wood and said I used to have to ‘run’ through there on the school cross-country run. The pub friend, who I’d met some seven or eight years after I’d left school said that he’d done the same. It turned out he’d been at the same school as me and in the same year but he was in a different form.
We’d have met up this year at the Eliza Carthy concert but he’d failed to get a ticket, I did let him know about the reunion I can’t remember his exact words but he’d decided it wasn’t for him.
I went to one, although it seemed to be full of fatter and balder versions of my schoolmates, and then somebody nicked my raffle prize off the table when we went off to dance, so I didn’t go to the last one. Several people did, though.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-suffolk-26627921
Everyone is different but my advice would be – don’t do it. I’m still suffering from the triggering effects of Lord Of The Flies which reminded me too closely of my schooldays.
I went to three about 12 years ago. To be honest I wouldn’t go to another one There was a girl I had the hots for when I was about 15 or 16. It was never reciprocated at the time but when we met at the reunion I realised I had dodged a bullet. She had other ideas and the next morning a received a text asking if I would come to her house ‘for coffee’.
That was the last school reunion and aside from my two best mates from school I don’t feel I have anything in common with the others that I met.
It is also sobering to find school mates who have died. I would say steer clear.
I’m going to one this May. 45 years after the fact. Should be interesting, at least.
What have you learned to avoid/gravitate towards… from the above comments?
I’ll try and be open-minded with the view that someone who was a cunt then may well not be a cunt now, I guess.
That’s not how you spell pithecanthropus.
I read that first as picathartes and wondered why you were comparing it to an African bald crow.
Never mind school reunions. The big unmasked question has to be when is the grand Afterworders reunion mingle going to take place and where? Or is it better if we never all meet?
NEC campervan show in October? I’ll get a round of overpriced paper cups of lukewarm tea in.
Shouldn’t you be taking your own in a tartan thermos flask?
To go with the sandwiches, wrapped in tin foil.
My previous visit to the NEC was a gig (New Order, Easter 1989), but the show is massive – lots of walking – and regular tea breaks are a must.
October show was 12 halls. Feb was ‘only’ 6 halls, but I was still utterly exhausted when we got home – I nearly fell asleep in my dinner.
I went to that New Order gig at the NEC too. I’ve actually still got the ticket and just had a look to see who the support
were but it doesn’t say. Bit of googling says it might have been Happy Mondays and/or A Guy Called Gerald.
I didn’t see many bands there despite living just up the road. Depeche Mode were brilliant on the Violator tour, with Electribe 101 supporting who were great as well
It – and their Wembley pool show in 1987/88 – put me off arena gigs for life.
I remember hearing that trancey version of Simple Minds’ Theme For Great Cities before they came on.
I’m hoping you’ve got a round tin of travel sweets swathed in icing sugar inside the glove compartment (next to a pair of string-backed gloves nicked from Tiggerlion)
I’m more of a Trebor Extra-Strong Mint man.