Calling back the past

A small group of girls from our 1973 matric year had tea at a local nursery yesterday, some of us meeting up again after a gap of 40 years. No one had changed too noticeably - a little extra roll here and there, and a laugh line or two, but nothing to speak of. Even our hair was pretty much the same style and length as our schooldays!

It was such a fun afternoon, and if it hadn't been for the fact that the restaurant closed for the day and everything was shut down around us, we would probably still be sitting there, reminiscing, catching up on births, marriages and careers and being amazed at how well we all got on! Most of us still live in the south Peninsula, although one lives abroad, but all of us have travelled and done interesting things with our lives, and in fact are still doing so. So there were no boring old fuddy-duddies at that afternoon tea!

Three of the ladies are directly linked to the three major schools in the Fish Hoek valley in various capacities and shared many an interesting story on the ins and outs of school life today. A far cry from the days when we romped through our schooldays in this most idyllic part of the world, with the beach, mountains and sand

dunes all on hand to keep us occupied. We laughed about the day the high school pupils ran away to the dunes for the day, although I can't say I remember why we did it! And the assembly when a bag of flour was dumped on the headmaster as he gave his morning homily from the stage - that I remember as if it were yesterday, the ripple of laughter that swept through the hall, quickly suppressed as even we, callow youths, realised how embarrassing it must have been for the poor man, and the sudden departure from the stage of teachers who had already identified the culprits.

There is no doubt that school days really are the best days of your life, but you have to live a long time to really understand that. We thought about our friends who had passed away since those days, some - far too many - leaving us in the first few years after school, but I think we were all agreed that being at the same school, and particularly over many years, leaves us all bound with the same silk ribbon that ties us together in the best possible way - with the happiest of memories of our long-lost youth.