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A.O.S.A. ANNUAL 2002 REPORT |
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This Magazine
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“That must be James Slater” came the voice across the row of parked cars.
After visiting the school site and grounds my wife, son and I arrived early at the Whinstone View Caravan park to let my son run off some steam, and await the arrival of the 70s’ crowd. First to arrive was Mandy Morgan (Wilson) and Fiona Campbell (Carter). Mandy was in a wheelchair after scalding her foot a few days earlier. They both recognised me straight away despite my receding hairline and extra two and a half stone (I wasn’t nicknamed Slim Jim for nothing.) Soon people were arriving thick and fast. We pushed three tables together and still some of the group had to stand. Jane Smith (Thomas) had been very busy and her year was best represented. They had met up at the Oak and arrived en masse. Soon the photographs were out and being passed round. We laughed at the boys’ hairstyles, but the clothes are now back in fashion From my year Richard (Dickie) Wilkinson, Huw Jarvis, Mark Rollison and I got together. Richard still in farming and some haulage, Huw is a professor at Salford University, Mark is in the computer security business and I am a database administrator. I think we were all amazed at how easily we got on,
we were able to talk as if it was only yesterday that we had last met.
It also showed how much we had forgotten; as someone recalled a story
the events would come back. Granted we don’t look like the teenagers,
(Jonathan and Darlas (Hunter) Vickers excepted) we once were, but I was
amazed how easy it was to recognise people. I had loaded my camera with film with the best intention of taking lots of photographs. However we spent so much time talking and passing round old pictures that only a few frames were used in fact it was quite late when I got up and formed everyone into group. Richard Wilkinson’s wife thoughtfully came forward to offer to take the photograph and suddenly found herself under a pile of cameras. Unfortunately the evening passed all too quickly and only broke up when the site management turned out the lights. Many apologies for all those who were there whom I have not mentioned, but just to list everyone would take nearly a page. Huw and I recently reflected on the reunion. Why was 2001 the year we all wanted to get together? Huw said that he had felt a need to get in contact, but couldn’t explain the reason. I then remembered what Henry Hughes had said, at my Leavers’ Supper in 1978. “You will come back for the first couple of years to see those friends who are still in the school, then careers and family will take up your time and each year you will say, ‘I’ll go back next year.’ Then after about twenty years, when you have settled down and your children no longer require your constant attention, you will be drawn back.” James Slater (1974-78) |
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Blast,
I thought that I would be more difficult to recognise than that. I
turned to the source. Two men smiled at me, one wearing a sinister set
of sunglasses. The voice belonged to Huw Jarvis and the guy with shades,
Mark Rollison. Huw and I had discovered the AOSA website (many thanks to
Dick Dennis & Co.) at about the same time, and had decided to get of
many as our contemporaries as possible to turn up at the next reunion.
Instead of an organised, planned campaign, we chose the scatter gun
approach and e-mailed, wrote and phoned anyone we had contact details
for. We encouraged those we contacted to do the same, and to add another
metaphor, things snowballed.