The last Grammar School Girls & Boys

I can hardly believe this was first posted 8 years ago in August 2008

Last Friday saw me driving down the A1M, M42, M5, M50 and A40, back home to Wales, in trepidation thinking “Why on earth am I doing this?”  It is 40 years since I, and some sixty others, started at Llandeilo Grammar School.  The next year the school amalgamated with Llandybie Secondary Modern to become Tregib Comprehensive.  So we were the last Grammar School Girls and Boys - and Julie Drew had organised a reunion.

The answer to my question was ‘sheer curiosity’.  Apart from my oldest best friend Sian, and Gareth the pharmacist, I’d hardly seen any of the others since leaving school.  I simply wanted to know how they’d turned out.  So on Saturday evening Sian drove us into Llandeilo and who should we bump into but Cherry.  We hadn’t seen each other since we were all 15 (when her family moved back to the West Midlands).  As she’d been planning to sleep in the car Sian invited her to stay at the farm as well.

At the Angel Inn people fell into three categories. Those who ‘hadn't changed a bit’ and we recognised straight away.  Those whose faces we sort of remembered but whose names we'd lost, or visa versa.  Finally the really awkward ones;  those who you couldn't remember, even after being told their names, because you'd forgotten them entirely.  Which was really difficult because you don’t like to hurt people’s feelings by admitting it to them.  (If I did so I really do apologise)

Apparently everyone remembered me (which feels embarrassing), I hadn't changed a bit - and I'm just like my mother.  Or as the organiser Julie Drew and her mum said "Ooh your mum was full of fun as well".

There were a couple of surprises.

Elin, who was a tall, thin, quiet girl has grown into a tall, thin, academic looking lady who speaks very slowly and deliberately as befits her profession of librarian.  She lives in London. When asked by one of The Boys what she did for fun she replied in her deliberate, academic way “Well, on Saturdays I steward for Chelsea Football Club at their ground.”

It seemed so unlikely we’d wouldn’t have been much more surprised if she’d told us she was a stripper. 

Andre Jacob who was brought up in France until he was 11 is someone I could only remember as a pasty moon-faced slightly chubby little boy.  He’s become a tall, well built, square shouldered man with piratical black hair and beard (unless of course like me he colours it).  He works with autistic children so once he heard about my boys we had a lot to talk about.

But what was really gratifying to my ego was The Boys.  At school I got the impression that I was entirely unattractive and that they didn't particularly like me either.  However 33 years later it was hugs and kisses all round.  And a few came up and said "Brenda Boyd" in a very pleased-to-see-you sort of voice. Not quite “is that a gun in your pocket or are you pleased to see me?” but close enough for my vanity.   Including most significantly the one I’d had a crush on.  However butterflies were entirely absent from my tummy and no blush rose to my matronly cheek.  Not even when he flung his arm around me for a photo.

One of The Boys had photocopied and numbered a photo of Tregib’s staff in 1969.  My reading glasses were shared by four of us trying to identify them.  We’ve all reached the stage where our arms aren’t long enough for our eyes to focus – and when you can focus the page is too far away to read anyway.

Closing time and the end of the evening came far too soon.  The Boys decided to carry on the evening in the bar of the Cawdor Arms Hotel and we were invited to accompany them.  But with Cherry and I having to drive home the next day we had to decline.  Thirty five years ago I’d have given almost anything for such an invitation.  Now I waved them off down Rhosmaen Street with a warm smile and a happy heart.

Almost everyone admitted that they’d come to the reunion feeling as fearful as me, and none of us really knew why.  All the teenage hormones and angst went years ago and if there were any lingering resentments and ghosts they got laid by the end of the evening.  Leaving memories of times shared, companionship and friendships renewed.

All in all I have to say I went to school with a great bunch of people.  There was a moment during the speeches (short) and heckling (filthy) when I suddenly realised "This is why I am as I am – spending the best part of seven years with these people. – this is why some people say I'm outrageous".  However at breakfast the next morning Cherry disabused me of that belief.  "Nah Bren” she said in her brilliant West Midlands accent “yow were always loike that.”