Voices From The Past

I recently received an e-mail from an old friend, Val, who was a colleague at Rawmarsh Comprehensive, and her husband Peter. They will be going to Australia in September, as part of a round the world trip, and we should be able to catch them on their stopover in Singapore. Over the years we've been lucky enough to entertain, if only briefly, quite a few people from my old school - Jean Armstrong, David & Sheila Hoddle, Phil & Margaret Chappel - and it's always a great experience, if slightly disorientating. The dark side of seeing old friends is being told about people passing on, or experiencing major problems in their lives. It was back at Dave Turner's on one of Noi's first trips to England that I heard of the deaths of Pat, George and Harry. Even now that doesn't seem quite real. So it goes.

Coincidentally Sheela from TKGS recently contacted me with news of a small reunion of some of the girls from the Drama Club there (one or two of whom performed in the original Ming Lee and the Magic Tree, quite a few years back.) That archetypally Singaporean problem, a busy schedule, meant I couldn't get to chat with them. Disappointing but there may be opportunities in future to find out what they've done with their lives so far.

I'm wary of tending to live in the past, possibly because I remember so much so vividly that there's a powerful temptation to do so. I'm lucky, though, to have a present that is rewarding enough to inhabit comfortably.