School trip down memory lane took a wrong turn somewhere
CAN you imagine the stories that will be told at school reunions about the pandemic in years to come?
“It was like the okaykokey, at our school inout-in-out.”
“We had to eat our school dinner with masks on.”
“Our headmaster took his mask off and his toupe came with it.’
I have to be honest and say I’m not a big fan of school reunions since a dear friend of mine from primary school tracked me down and invited me to go to our school reunion. As I hadn’t seen her for decades I jumped at the chance. She said it would be a lot of fun and I believed her.
I met her at the venue (a large pub), had a drink and a chat and agreed to meet up later after we had caught up with respective friends.
I saw a couple of faces I recognised and went over to say hello but I had expected to meet a lot more. Maybe they had changed so much I couldn’t identify them.
I ambled around for a couple of hours hoping I’d spot my pals from the school football team but I had no success so I stood by the buffet stuffing myself with stale sandwiches and rubber sausage rolls.
Around 4pm there was a big announcement asking everyone to go to the main room where they would be showing a cine film of our school trip.
I spotted my friend Barbara and said I didn’t remember ever going on a school trip. She grabbed my arm and pulled me along with the crowd to see the way we were back in the day.
I never saw a single kid I recognised in that film and when they unfurled a banner saying ‘Egerton Park Summer Outing’ I knew why.
I never went to Egerton Park School. our
Barbara apologised and said she was certain I went there after primary school. I said I was certain I didn’t.
So my enthusiasm for school reunions is rather dampened by having spent an entire afternoon at the reunion of a school I never attended.
(There is however a lady named Lil in Bollington who made my school days err…let’s just say ‘memorable.’ You will hear more about Lil in the weeks to come. (I’ll have to smoothtalk her first.