Well, having seen the world remembering D Day this week, the class of 1975 at Colne Valley High had their own day of memories of their own D Day, leaving school, on the evening of the 8th of June-a school reunion at Slaithwaite Cricket Club. This school year is the year we all turn(ed) 60-scary really.
We had a reunion four years ago, my first, and I really enjoyed it. Four years on, in changed circumstances and with a lot of shit having happened-and currently happening, I wasn't in the mood for it really. Knowing that I would regret not making the effort though, and having been asked to take a camera, I kicked myself up the backside and, for the first time in over 18 months, I put my glad rags on, gathered some gear and nipped down to the cricket club. I hadn't set foot in a bar for over 18 months either, having gone out four or five times a week for a few years I fell out with doing the same old thing and just stopped going out. Having been tea total until I was 42 but having developed a liking for wine in my forties, I felt that I was having a drink every evening out of habit rather than for pleasure so I decided to stop for a month-a month became a year and I don't miss it-yet! I haven't watched live TV for 17 years, it frees an amazing amount of time up to do other (real life?) things- I definitely don't miss TV either.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds it really strange to be meeting ghosts from the past, often long forgotten. How many would you fail to recognise without the name tag giving it away? Talking to people, it's obvious that many have fond memories of school, me? I despised every second, Junior school wasn't good but high school killed me, I was struck down with a blinding migraine that crippled me only weeks into the first term-stress related. There wasn't another boy from my old school in our form and seats are always in pairs, old schoolmates formed clicks and I was an outsider-for a while. I missed a lot of school, I didn't walk the streets, so long as I put my overalls on and worked my Dad turned a blind eye to me walking back home to work, having clocked in for the morning register. There wouldn't be any letters from him claiming that I'd been ill, I had to tough it out and make my own excuses, sometimes forging my own letters. I walked out early in the fifth form and never really went back. When I went to get my leaving papers signed at the end of the fifth form most of the teachers though that I'd left long ago. The truant officers were on my case, but, finding that I was working, and that I had no intention of going back to school, they agreed to calling it work experience but the deal was that I had to go to school one day a week. I chose Friday. The reality was that once every few weeks I went for first registration and then climbed out of the form room window, in C block, at ground level, and legged it back to work. During the reunion evening I glanced at the printed roll call of our school year that was on the tables, I searched for my name in 5B1, scanning the list over and over again-my name wasn't there! I don't suppose it's surprising really is it?
I used to do a lot of party photography but gave up years ago as I was getting asked to do christenings and weddings and the like and I've never wanted to turn a hobby into a job, what's the point? I haven't put a flashgun on a camera for years and, even though I use my cameras every day of the week, I had to reacquaint myself with indoor flash techniques again, which really means that I shot half a dozen test shots in my office at home before I turned out. Going around a room full of relative strangers, often not impressed at having a large professional camera stuck in their face, isn't for the fainthearted, and, like flash photography, you get better with practice-I'm definitely out of practice. I tried, but probably failed, to include everyone, some people seemed to stay out of my way, but I did try to be inclusive. Personally, I think that perhaps Michael Sykes was the only person that took a photo of me-so perhaps I was there after all! I was asked to write the opinion column in The Times a few years ago, I'd written a letter to the editor (as you do), and, having impressed the editor with my viewpoint on a subject that they were getting quite wrong, with a letter that was far too long to publish, but that I knew an awful lot more about than they did, the editor of the opinion column was asked to approach me with a view to me writing a column for publication the following day. It was bit surreal at the time and led to TV and radio interviews over the following twelve months-my ten seconds of fame I suppose. The problem was that I had to find a photo of myself in a suit to go with the column. At the time, thankfully, I often went out in a suit but I was always the man with the camera and no one took photos of me unless someone grabbed my camera. I did eventually manage to crop myself from a scene with lots of other people in it, tidy it up a bit, and it did the job.
It was good to catch up with some old friends and I think it's fantastic that Lynn, Michael and Dianne go to the trouble of organising these reunions (my apologies if anyone else is involved) They took the financial risk of hiring Storm to entertain us (and rattle my tinnitus) and kept their fingers crossed that we'd all stump up enough to cover the cost. Of course another reason for not missing a reunion is that you may not see some of these people again. I'm often amazed that someone from my schooldays appears at work as a customer, I haven't seen them for 30 or 40 years and they only live a mile or so away from me. Many people long for their schooldays back, often with the caveat that they knew then what they know now, the advantages of youth and the wisdom of age, personally, I wouldn't want to go back for love nor money. There's a lot I want to do but very little I'd want to repeat. I was in a dispute with a local hillbilly who used to drive for us a while ago, a man who was always complaining that everything about yesterday, the past, was better than today. He told me that he never got on with me because I was a progressive, always looking forward and he wasn't. I laughed and said thank f**k for that.
The photos aren't my best effort, autofocus doesn't like dimly lit rooms, if I took a photo of someone and it isn't here, it's probably because the autofocus didn't lock on-or the flash didn't fire, apologies to anyone I missed although I would guess that someone with a phone got you.
Will we have another I wonder? Time will tell.
