Avoid reunions so school mates stay young forever

I STILL haven’t replied to the email which has been sitting in my inbox for the last few weeks silently nagging at me.

It’s from my old school reminding me that it’s 35 years since I took my O-Levels (for those too young to remember, they were a bit like the modern GCSEs but much harder). The email is an invitation to a school reunion for the ‘Class of 1984’. I am really torn about what to do.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my school days; what was there not to like? It was an all boys grammar which admitted girls the year after I left.

We had the cane, blackboards and teachers who actually smoked in the classroom and, in the sixth form, bought us pints at lunchtime at the pub next door whilst discussing English literature or history.

Ah, the days before Ofsted when education wasn’t just about results and targets but more about learning about life along the way.

Admittedly, there were problems such as the four boys in my year who had offered to help the headmaster look after his garden as part of volunteering for their Duke of Edinburgh Award, only to be eventually expelled after it was discovered they had been growing cannabis in his greenhouse and cultivating magic mushrooms among the flowerbeds and selling their produce to third formers.

I can remember thinking at the time that they should have got some kind of enterprise award rather than being asked to leave.

They were great days that exist in my memory but do I want to go back?

I haven’t realły kept in touch with many of my school mates over the years although I have kept tabs on their progress (or lack of it) thanks to social media. For example, I know that one of them is a hedgefund manager and has houses in Hong Kong, America and France.

Another is now actually retired after making a fortune in the city back in the nineties.

On the flip side, one is dead and another is actually in prison for fraud (so, sadly, neither of them will be attending the proposed reunion in the summer).

Then there was my friend who got his girlfriend pregnant in the sixth form. Amazingly, they are still together and are now grandparents. Yes, our year was made up of all sorts.

I’m realły not sure about going back and meeting them all again. We will all look older, fatter and world weary.

Yes, we may reminisce about the good old days but, in reality, we would just sit around drinking, talking about Brexit, divorce and pensions.

There is a saying that goes along the lines of ‘the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young’.

I am not sure I agree.

In my mind, my school mates will be forever young; we were teenagers with hopes, ambitions and care free. I don’t want that memory to be tainted by the reality and cynicism of middle age.

I will email back and decline the invitation.