“I choose to look back and remember laughter and friendship….” This was a quote sent over from a former pupil of our boarding school when I asked the “Old Scholar” group from the school’s Facebook page if anyone wanted to share some reminiscences from 50-odd years ago and make contributions toward the book I was considering writing.
From my recent newsie story about boarding schools (in my weekly column inside the Rustler/Tribune or online at LUNAbookspublishing.com), my father gently chided me for omitting a very important part of our school lives — the important friendships that were formed, many which continue to this day.
As my nameless participant went on… (she’s an author as well and didn’t want to be officially quoted!):
- Laughter: There was lots of laughter about anything and everything. Lots of movement, running everywhere, dancing and singing.
- Lazy hours: Sitting and talking, day-dreaming and imagining. No phones to distract us. However … out of boredom came creativity and mischief….
- Dormitory: Midnight snacks — condensed milk and bananas. Break-outs from windows and down water pipes…. (back to the mischief…)
- School Life: Cockroaches, white bread and strawberry jam. Fruit allowance. Swimming pool, PE lessons and country dancing. The excitement of trips, such as La Coume (for the sixth formers), Biology Trips and the Quaker Pilgrimage. The Art Studio and the Pottery Tower. The Avenue. The Biology Labs and the access to study at all times. Skilled and dedicated teachers and a bespoke approach, which I am so thankful for, as life may have been very different without it.
- Quaker-ism: Quaker silence. (The benefits of absolute silence!) Trying not to laugh in the Assembly Hall.
- Friendships: Friendships for life and a skill to know what real friendship means, both to be able to receive it and to give it.
Re-reading my author friend’s list of evocative memories gave me food for thought about the people who graduated from those walls — who did what in their later lives and what they became. Thanks to social media it is much easier to stay connected with others these days (no more hanging out at the mailbox expectantly awaiting a familiar scribe from home). Even if it’s a very casual connection from a long time ago, it’s nice to know where many of my classmates from the 1970s are hanging their hats these days. Somehow it matters.
I do note that we are a bunch of avid travelers. Many of us live abroad, have lived abroad or at least travel widely. Many attended excellent universities. We are a volunteer base of folk, widely involved in charitable works and creative ventures in our communities. Alan is a judge in New Zealand, Charis is an interior designer, Ian is an electrical engineer, Mike is a geologist in Perth, Western Australia, Lizzi is a medical doctor in Tasmania, Andy is a retired doctor in Cumbria and yoga instructor in India, Ron is a geoscientist in St Lucia, just to name a few.
I am here in California. I am so phenomenally impressed by the resumes of my former classmates. It also seems as if many of them became really good people, which has to be the best thing of all.
Back to Ron, who came from a very under-privileged background and went on to do absolutely marvelous things in life. I remember him well at school — not as under-privileged, but as a lovely, clever, friendly chap. He is black and that didn’t mean anything to the rest of us — he was just Ron. We were all very well-integrated into the culture of our classrooms at 9-10-years old — whether gay or straight, black or white, rich or poor, none of that mattered — we were just classmates. No biggie. And isn’t that quite the model to encourage the civilized nurturing of young minds.
Ron is the co-founder and trustee of the Tides Community (Transition through Inclusion and Diversity for Equity) dedicated to developing under-privileged and under-represented young people into skilled workers and future leaders for the transition to Net Zero through funding scholarships and grants for STEM-related subjects (Science, Tech, English, Maths). In Ron’s bio on the website www.tide.community, it states that Ron appreciates the value of the bursaries for charities and the state-funded grant that allowed him to get where he is today, both educationally and professionally. I know this because I recently sponsored him in a 600km bike ride for his charity from Georgetown Guyana to Albina, South America, where he sadly fractured his arm in two places, but his smile and energy and determination throughout his adventure were not remotely fractured. Ron pays it forward like you always hope people will.
At school, my friend Andy and I were super-competitive, I do remember that. Andy was cleverer and prettier than me (also better at sports), but I didn’t let that slow me down. I was never envious of her, as such (except for the fact the boys liked her more than me), but she pushed me along to do better and be better. My father reminded me of that. Andy came from a family of doctors, so in a sense her future life was written and, indeed, she did become a doctor in a family practice in the north of England. She also went on to travel widely. Thanks to my parents, my school friends were always welcome at our house and often cite my folks as a significant building block in their childhoods. There’s a lesson to be learned there. I think we did the same for our children’s friends.
I stayed in touch with many people well beyond school and it’s super nice to be able to sponsor a race, commiserate on a loss, or send in your RSVP to a school reunion once every 10 years, because that was a very formative time in our lives and these are some very special people. Time does not change that.
Living abroad, it is more difficult to stay in touch, but I have folk touch point me once in a while and commend me on my animal rescue work or advise on a future get-together that touches my heart. It has been a while since our 2019 Class Reunion, and I don’t know if any of us have the energy or space in our lives to host another one. I’m blessed to play “Word with Friends” every day with my friend Charis from our school days. We discovered this game during the pandemic and clung on to it even tighter the more nuts the world became. I think we will play it forever.
I was going to write a book about our boarding school days and detail some of the colorful memories our “author friend” bought up in her lists above and others too, but I don’t think that is happening either. I have many books inside me and I’m not sure that our boarding school stories would be the block buster I’m seeking — truthfully rather a slim audience that I’m not sure would sell many copies — but this is my second story concerning the subject, that will possibly end up in a book of my columns that I compile every 2-3 years, so it may make it out there on the world stage before we know it and it is not nothing.
I apologize to my old school friends out there who had wanted to participate, planned to participate, even did participate in my request for stories from Friends’ School Saffron Walden, UK, classes of 1973-1980. Unless I get wildly famous and my publisher wants to publish everything I’ve ever written, sadly a book of our adventures will likely not be happening, but I do have to say that memories cost nothing and I am so impressed by who we were back then and who we became in later life.
Soledad columnist Lucy Jensen may be reached at lu*************@***il.com.
