Saturday23rd and Sunday 24th June

A Photo Gallery covering the weekend's activities
is available for your entertainment. Enjoy.

It was the tenth anniversary of the closure of the school, numbers attending the reunion were down and it was not so much ‘flaming’ June as well er…. ‘flaming June’! We had stair rods at Whinstones on the Sat afternoon, the committee barely had time to settle for their meeting in an already damp marquee when the heavens opened again.

I can’t remember seeing rain like it, everyone rushed out with cameras at the ready to catch the storm for posterity and poor William Pine, our intrepid Treasurer, even fell in the water in the course of his photographic duties, getting a soaking for his pains. I guess, however, conditions were not dissimilar to ten years ago and our last reunion as an Association with a working school, so maybe the Gods were crying yet again in memory of that so sad time.

The Reunion Evening Meal had to move indoors

What! Not even Water Polo?

By teatime on the Saturday it was apparent that the that marquee would be a no go area that evening, people were paddling, and unless members came in wellies and wetsuits it could have been a very uncomfortable experience for one and all

The committee and, Jen Summerfield in particular, rose to the challenge, the staff at Whinstones were magnificent and together they moved us into our ‘quiet’ room upstairs above the main restaurant, where, slightly squashed, we had a wonderful Saturday evening. The meal, as last year, was superb. Martyn Gaudie duly handed over his medallion of office to our new President, Tessa Snowdon with an amusing little speech, and Tessa’s husband Andy was persuaded, a little reluctantly, that it is custom and practise nowadays for the President’s spouse or partner to wear that pin, and thus the reign of the 111th Association President had begun.

Sonia Wade's Form Group from 50 years ago had returned
from many corners of the World

As  2007 represented 50 years since former President and our Convenor of the Nominations’ Committee, Sonia Wade (Dunn) had left school, she persuaded many of her contemporaries to join her by way of celebration and it was good to talk to them on Saturday, having a ball despite the weather, including Mel Stewart and his wife Jackie from Sharjah (and Mel’s brother Keith who lives in the UK) who are not normally in England at this time of year and who braved the rains specially for the event.

Another long distance contemporary of Sonia's over for the weekend was Kathleen Weldon (Hall) from Toronto, sister to Marjorie Gaudie, who had brought with her the famous tablecloth on which she had for fifty years been embroidering the signatures of all of her former classmates. To her delight and thanks to the good offices of Jane Campbell (Bye) in the Memorabilia Room of the Meeting House, she had that afternoon, acquired a photograph to the school badge which was to take pride of place in the cloth’s centre. Kathleen was a very happy bunny.

For those who had planned to use the campsite for one last time, the extremely wet weather proved something of a challenge. Our editor, James Slater, was in his camper van on the Saturday night with wife Pam and their three children, rumour had it they had to be rowed back. DS Andrew Vaux and his friend pitched their tiny tent under a tree; it was, I understand, last seen heading downstream towards the beck!

Sunday Lunch and AGM

Sunday lunch was held on the Terrace at Whinstones, it had recently acquired a very nice waterproof awning with windows, and thus was an excellent substitute for the still damp marquee. I introduced Mel and Jackie to near contemporary David Stephenson, a Councillor for Erewash in Derbyshire and his wife, the first time I think that David had ever returned. I hope he enjoyed the experience sufficiently to consider joining us on a drier summer.

After lunch, we adjourned to the Meeting House for the AGM, something I have long been advocating and it proved a much better venue all round than the marquee, one could hear for starters, as it has a continuous loop system in operation, for the harder of hearing. Tessa gave us her address, it was amusing and based along the lines of Jen Summerfield’s Profile in this year’s Mag, I enjoyed it very much. Many congratulations Tessa, you got it exactly right.

After this the AGM, expertly led as ever by our Chairman Diz Dexter, proceeded at a right old pace, with Jill Wheeler, I think, reading the Editor’s report for James who could not make the Sunday and Louis Trotter doing the same for Dick Dennis, who owing to two fairly recent hip ops, punctuated by a pulmonary embolism, could not be with us this year. It was Louis also who later introduced the President Elect, his and my contemporary and a barely kept secret this time around, Harry Snalam from British Columbia. Harry comes back all this way just to attend the reunions on a very regular basis often, as he was this year, accompanied by his wife Susan. I think he is an excellent choice. We look forward to a big gathering of the newly 70ish clan on 29th/30th June 2008, by way of support for him.

Douglas Horne did not disappoint, he put forward two germane if slightly tricky points in ‘any other business’, which I thought Diz fielded with aplomb and with those neatly in the bag, the AGM was declared over for another year and we were on our way back home in the rains. The weather had not been able to spoil the weekend, which was one of the best I can remember, a combination of that Ayton grit and the Dunkirk spirit. Thanks to all who worked so hard to make this possible.

Gill Jackson (Hinds 1950-55)