You don't actually have to be chronologically old to qualify as an 'old girl', or an 'old boy', for that matter. The minute you walk out through the gates of your secondary school, for the very last time, you become an 'old girl/boy' of that establishment. I imagine it's a joyous occasion for most of us.
Whoever it was who came up with that ludicrous statement about your school days being the happiest of your life must have been deranged, deluded or had the amazing luck to have been sent to a school situated somewhere in Fairyland. It wasn't my experience. I couldn't get out fast enough. I disliked pretty much everything about it. The hideous, navy blue uniform, all those stupid rules - a couple of examples being always having to walk down corridors exactly three tiles in from the wall and never being seen in your school uniform eating a lolly-ice in the street...yes,really...and oh, so many more, all dreamed up by our ironically named Headmistress, Miss Merry.
Then there were the sadistic teachers, the horrible homework and the gruesome school dinners. So far as I was concerned it was a hell hole that smelt of floor polish, over boiled mince and something else that I could never quite put my finger on, but it was utterly revolting, so not putting a finger on it was probably for the best. I prefer not to dwell on it. But one of the very worst aspects of school, from my personal perspective, was the lesson known as PE. Physical Education. Those words can still make my blood run cold.
I was the least sporty teenager you could possibly imagine so, for me, being forced out onto a hard frozen hockey pitch, shivering in navy blue knickers and Aertex shirt, to slither about on the frosted mud whilst other, more viciously inclined girls, aimed for my ankles with their sticks or scooped the cement hard ball towards my skull, was pure torture. And if that wasn't bad enough, when the misery of the so called 'game' was over we were herded back inside, blue with cold, and forced into the communal showers were we all tried, desperately, to avoid any sort of contact with the clammy skin of the girl huddled next to us in that trough of shame. Resolutely fixing our eyes on the tiled wall we would stand, shivering, beneath a trickle of lukewarm water for as short a time as we could get away with before scuttling into the changing room and dragging our clothes onto our still damp bodies in an effort to end the whole, humiliating business as quickly as possible. I doubt it would be allowed today. It'd be regarded as some sort of abuse, which indeed it was in my opinion.
And then there was that torture chamber, the gym, with the awful horse thing you're supposed to be able to vault over. I did see other girls, propelling themselves above it and flying through the air like swallows, but for me it was akin to hurling myself at a brick wall. And, just supposing I'd been able to get over the wretched thing, what good would this have done me in later life? I've never seen a job description that included, 'the ability to leapfrog over large, fixed objects without breaking a limb or knocking all the breath out of your body.' And don't even get me started on Netball, Rounders, Athletics (I still bear the scars from catching my foot on the top of that bloody hurdle!) and all the other wretched activities some fool thought were an essential part of the educational experience.
In fact, now I look back, there was very little that I learned in that establishment that was of the remotest use to me in real life, and those shreds that have proved beneficial could easily have been imparted to me over a period of a couple of years, at most, saving everyone concerned a lot of time, money and misery. You'll have got the picture. I was not a happy school girl. I quite liked being in Choir and Drama Club, but they were extra-curricular anyway, so didn't really count. The best parts of my day were the cycle rides there and back and I've never lost my love of riding my bike, but for the rest of the day I just wanted to escape into the big, wide world which, I was quite sure, would bring about a vast improvement to my quality of life, and I was right! From the moment I left life was a hell of a lot more fun.
And then, a couple of months ago, completely out of the blue, I received an email informing me that some idiot had decided to hold a reunion for the class of...whenever it was, I can't actually remember, it's oo far back, over fifty years in fact. Anyway, this woman had tracked me down, by a means too convoluted to go into here, telling me when and where my old classmates would be foregathering for an evening of wine, nibbles and catching up. The 'catching-up' bit struck me as a trifle optimistic considering the high number of the intervening years. I thought it might take rather more than one evening for us all to relate so much history.
The thing is, I've never been big on the whole reunion idea. I'm of the belief that, if you haven't bothered to stay in touch with somebody then there's probably a damned good reason for it. At it's simplest, you probably just didn't get on and had nothing in common. At its more complicated, you hated each others guts. Either way, they're excellent reasons for not bothering with some people, whilst choosing to hang around with the ones you like and who like you. The concept of friendship, in a nutshell. So why do some people think it's an excellent idea for us all to seek each other out again? Surely it only serves to remind us of why we decided to give each other a wide berth in the first place, which isn't necessarily the making of a convivial gathering.
And another thing. When you get a large group of women together there's all that pressure over the way you look. Who's developed the most wrinkles, put on the most weight, looks the biggest mess (thus, she will be despised) or looks completely fabulous (thus, she will be despised)? Such a worry. Sure, you might come back feeling on top of the world, having shaped up fairly well by comparison, but there's an equally good chance you'll want to cut your wrists. Such a risk. So, what did I do? Send a curt, but polite, reply declining the invite? Don't be ridiculous! I went, obviously.
I'm only human and of course I couldn't resist the opportunity of finding out if Stella, she of the blonde hair, rule flouting tendencies and penchant for doing whatever it was she did with boys behind bike sheds, had indeed gone to hell in a handcart, as predicted by all the teachers. Had clever, studious Beth fulfilled her early promise and gone on to be something terribly high-powered? My natural nosiness is way stronger than my scruples and the appointed date found me wearing slimming black, with freshly cut hair and carefully applied make-up turning up at the selected venue.
I made a tentative entry into the room and looked around. Then I wondered if I was in the wrong place, and herein lay the first problem. I didn't recognise anybody, not a single soul. Even those to whom the years have been kind are going to be a bit changed by the passage of half a century. The woman who'd organised it was obviously keeping an eye on the door and came to my rescue. I looked at her and, somewhere in there, I could just about find the pretty, mild mannered girl I'd last seen sniffling into her hanky, as she pushed her bike out of the school gates for the last time. So I suppose it makes sense that she was the one who decided we should reunite, being one of the few people I'd known who happened to like the place and was sorry to leave.
Me. 'Barbara?'
Her. 'Yes!'
Me. 'How lovely to see you again!'
Her. 'And you.' (pause) 'Who are you? I'll do you a name badge?'
Right, so I now know that I too have been changed beyond all recognition. I feel really great about that. I tell her my name, my maiden name, the one these people will remember me by. I've had a couple of husbands in the intervening time, and the name changes that went with them. I will be proudly trotting out this fact during the course of the evening as I was a bit of a late developer, on the boyfriend front, and I am sure that some of those here present will be surprised to hear I've ever had sex at all. My badge is pinned to my chest and I sally forth, into the fray.
I grab a glass of wine from the table and down quite a lot of it, very quickly, whilst surveying the assembled throng. They all seem to be in animatedly chatting groups. I must break into one. I aim for the one that's doing the most laughing. It's as good a strategy as any. I've nearly reached my goal when a small woman literally jumps in front of me, shrieking, 'It's you, isn't it? It is! Isn't it? It's you?!!' I confirm that I am, most certainly, me. She grins and nods at me enthusiastically, willing me to recognise her. She keeps bobbing up and down, like a small, grey haired Tigger so it's hard to focus on her name badge. And then I manage it. 'Gillian!', I cry, trying to match her level of excitement. I do remember her, vaguely, but we weren't even in the same Form, let alone friends, so I'm not sure why she's so evidently delighted to see me.
'Oh gosh,' she goes on, 'I'm really glad you came.' I can't help myself, I'm too overwhelmed by this unexpected turn of events, and I blurt out, 'Are you? That's nice. Why?' She has hold of my arm by now, and is steering me towards the group that she has presumably just bounced out of. 'Well, because of that thing you did,' she replies, a bit worryingly. I did a thing? A good thing or a bad thing? A thing I would want to remember? A thing I would choose to have remembered by others?' Shit. I've only just got here and I'm having a 'Thing' crisis. As we near the group I try to think what on earth she's talking about, but nothing springs to mind. I suppose she could have mistaken me for somebody else. Somebody who did a memorable 'Thing'. We're there, I'm thrust into the midst of the group and Gillian anounces my name, the right name, so I AM the girl that did the 'Thing'.
It all becomes a bit of a blur after that as people tell me their names and some make immediate sense and some need a bit of thinking about but, eventually, I've got them all sorted and it's fine, and we're talking about jobs, marriages, families, stuff you're supposed to talk about at reunions, and I'm quite enjoying it, I can hold my own. I've had jobs and men and children and I'm doing ok. I'm not the high flyer, but I'm not the saddo either. And I've forgotten all about the 'Thing'. I'm getting into my swing and have just made everyone laugh with a story at the expense of my first husband (he deserved it, he wasn't a nice man, don't go feeling sorry for him) when Gillian interjects with, 'Oh, I really wish I'd spoken to you at school, and kept in touch and everything. I've never forgotten. I've always been sorry I didn't say more at the time. It was all my fault really. I was so pleased when Barbara said you were coming.' We all turn and look at her.
I know, with a sinking feeling, that the 'Thing' is about to raise its bewildering head once more. By this point someone has been round replenishing our glasses, and I'm riding high on alcohol and laughter, so I have the courage to ask, point blank, 'WHAT DID I DO?' Poor Gillian blinks at me behind her sensible glasses. 'You took a stand,' she says, quietly. I feel worse. Not only have I done a 'Thing' of which I have no recollection, but I've now barked a question at this nice woman, and the 'Thing' was, apparently, quite a good 'Thing', so my position as nice person may have been damaged by the barking bit.
'Did I?' I ask meekly. And then everybody's talking at once. It seems they all recall the 'Thing'. And now, reluctantly, so do I.
The trouble is that I, prompted by the memories of others, can conjure up an event that I regarded as best forgotten. It was like this. In my final year at the aforementioned school/gulag I was, surprisingly, made a prefect. My position was denoted by the wearing of a green sash around my waist and an enamelled badge pinned to my cardigan. It involved certain duties, which were allocated on a weekly basis. One week, during a particularly bleak February, I was charged with patrolling the corridors in order to eject any poor soul who thought they might be able to remain indoors during break time, rather than to take their chances in the wind and rain lashed playground (if ever an area was ill-named...) thereby risking hypothermia and the devastating effects of hail on the adolescent skin.
My feelings about being entrusted with this mission were mixed. It meant that I could remain cosily, and legally, indoors myself, which was a bonus. But I was required to confront those that would try and flout this law and eject them, into the maelstrom. I was a cowardly child and not keen on confronting anyone so, if I found girls lurking in the cloakrooms, for example, I'd probably suggest they decamped to a cubicle in the toilets, where they were less likely to be detected, than actually chucking them out. I did this because I feared they might hurt me if I told them to go outside.
Then, one day, whilst doing a corridor patrole, I happened upon a small, weedy girl with a streaming cold, crouched by a radiator and doing her maths homework, and I chose to stroll on by. It wasn't that I was totally above pulling rank on those even weaker than myself and, I admit, to my shame, that if I could be sure there was absolutely no danger of violence being visited upon my person, I had sometimes enjoyed doing my prefect act and pushing those younger and smaller than me about a bit. Not physically, just telling them to make sure they were walking three tiles in, and that sort of thing. Now you're probably thinking I deserved that nasty husband but I'm not proud of myself. I'd just never had any sort of power before and it might have gone to my head a tad.
Well, I let this kid stay in, unaware that, a few minutes later, a teacher would be rounding the corner and seeing the self, same kid. She'd ask her how come she was there? Kid would say I'd let her stay there. Teacher would report matter to Headmistress. I would be summoned to her office. It was that sort of school. No misdemeanour, however minor, went unpunished. In fact...and you probably wont believe this, but it's true...one poor girl got expelled for writing the name of her pop idol on the label in a bowl of the hyacinths that adorned the window ledges of the corridors. Yes! EXPELLED! Nowadays you'd have to spray paint 'Mr. Wilson is a cunt,' in three foot high letters on the science block wall before they'd even think about it, and even then they'd probably try offering the offender some sort of therapy before actually throwing them out. But there you go, they were harsh days.
Thus it was that I found myself in the terrifying environs of Miss Merry's office. I don't remember much about the interview, except that my knees were literally knocking against each other, so high was my terror level. I do know she gave me that whole spiel that always starts with ,'You've let the school down...' and, after a longish litany of people and things that have been let down, ends with, '...but most of all, you've let yourself down.' I hung my head, in my sheepish way, and made no defence. I knew it would be futile anyway. She wasn't a woman you argued with. I merely awaited the pronouncement of my punishment, for punishment I knew there must be, Miss M. not being big on second chances.
And so it was that the following day, with the entire school gathered in the Hall for Morning Assembly, that I was denounced as a disgrace to the office of prefect, an abuser of the trust that had been placed in me and an appalling example to the younger children in the school who would have been looking up to me for guidance. I had my doubts about that last one, but was in no position to start contradicting her. She went on at some length, warming to her theme until it reached a point where I wouldn't have been surprised if she'd laid the blame for the poor state of the local bus service squarely at my door. She eventually ran out of sins to rain on my shameful head and the worst of the whole, humiliating business had to be gone through.
I was required to do the walk of shame, down the length of the hall, up the steps onto the stage, approach Miss Merry, seated at the desk in the middle, and then, having arrived in front of her, remove my green sash and my enamelled badge and hand them over, the whole thing executed (good word, in this context) in awful silence. I think that even something sonorous, like a bit of Beethoven, would have been better than that silence. Then I had to continue across the stage, down the steps the other side and back down the hall to my seat. I reckoned I now knew how those disgraced soldiers felt when they had their swords broken across the knee of their Captain and their epaulets torn off.
The whole episode caused me the most acute embarrassment and I think I must have made it clear to my friends that I really didn't want to talk about it. I was leaving shortly afterwards so I just wanted to keep my head down, do the time and get the hell out of the place. And then, I kid you not, I'd blotted out the whole, wretched business from that day forth. And now, thanks to bloody Gillian, everyone was talking about it again.
It was weird, like I imagine time travel would be as all the emotions of those awful, scary, shameful couple of days surged up again and I was transported back into the body of that girl with the flaming cheeks and the shaky legs and the sense that everybody was looking at her and sniggering, or thinking how stupid she was or how hopeless at being a prefect, or something along those lines. Nothing flattering, certainly. I had never, ever been in trouble at school before. I was a bit of a goody goody, if truth be told, so I'd found the whole episode traumatic.
But, wait! All these women are smiling at me, saying how sorry they'd felt for me, how unfair they'd thought it was and Gillian, who was indeed that small, snotty girl clinging to the radiator, is hailing me as her heroine and expressing regret at having not thanked me at the time. They all remember. Good grief! This is an unexpected turn of events. I am seen as having taken a stand when, really, all I did was fail to put up any resistance. I accepted my fate and took my punishment without so much as whimper. If I'd had any inkling of what what was going to happen to me I'd have thrown poor Gillian out into the storm as soon as look at her. I know this in my heart of hearts. I am tempted to say as much. But it was fifty years ago, during an otherwise unremarkable school career. I'd made no particular impact, either sporting or academic. And now, suddenly, I am hailed as having been, within that tiny, insignificant pool, an ever so slightly heroic fish. Some of these women regard me as a brave flouter of foolish rules. Gillian thinks I acted out of compassion for a little girl with a cold. And so, rightly or wrongly, I go my cowardly way and leave it at that. Is it so very wrong to prefer people to remember you in a good light than not to remember you at all? I'm still not sure. Maybe I should have cried out, 'No, no, that's not how it was. I just folded.' But what I did do was stay silent, accept another glass of wine and change the subject, sharpish.
I certainly haven't had my mind changed about reunions. I'm pretty sure I never did anything else remotely memorable that's just waiting to be unearthed. And if there is then there's also a very good chance it's better left buried. A few of us exchanged email addresses and mobile numbers but I doubt I'll ever feel moved to actually contact any of them, and I'm sure that, in the cold light of a sober day, they will have felt pretty much the same. Oh, and Stella had indeed lived up to all those early predictions for her future and gone completely off the rails, and she looked bloody marvellous on it!
