EXCITEMENT is mounting as I prepare to fly half way round the world for a reunion with my old school buddies, most of whom I haven’t seen since we were sun-kissed 16-year-olds in the warm heart of Africa.
That was more than 40 years ago and I still can’t quite believe we’re meeting up in Franschhoek, the Cape’s restaurant capital, in just three weeks.
I think we’re all feeling the same mix of elation and apprehension, concern and curiosity . . . will the intervening years simply melt away? Will we be able to josh and joke the way we used to? Will we still like each other?
More to the point - will we even recognise each other?
The winds of change were sweeping through Africa when we sat our 0 levels in 1963. Most of us were of British descent and many of us followed our parents ‘home.’ Others migrated to South Africa and Zimbabwe or emigrated to America, Canada and Australia and even China . . . and one brave soul stayed on to farm in Mazabuka.
I remember feeling immensely sad as we went our separate ways, wondering if we’d ever see each other again.
There was no internet then and we didn’t even exchange addresses.
I’ve always been extremely envious of people who could meet up with old school chums at the click of a Friends Reunited website button.
Maybe I was looking back with rose-tinted glasses but growing up in Africa was bliss - the freedom, the space, the uncomplicated relationships as we grew up, swam, cycled and swapped homework together.
But there were very few people to share those precious memories with, apart from my close friend Sue Calderbank (now Wood) who lives in Colchester. Most people have never heard of Zambia, never mind Ndola.
Over the years we really wanted to know what had happened to ‘Nosey’ Parkes, Pete ‘Ears’ Ashton, Merv ‘the Swerv’ Blumberg and school swot Douglas de Lacey. But we didn’t think we ever would.
Then - thanks to the magic of cyberspace - we gradually started making contact.
‘Nosey’ Parkes is a retired Shell trouble shooter and father-of-three; Pete ‘Ears’ Ashton is no longer a gangly youth but a well respected aquatic ecologist; Merv ‘the Swerv’ outgrew his hippy kibbutz period, swapped dentistry for architecture and runs a very successful practice in Toronto. Doug, bless him, still has a first class brain, a kindly twinkle and - no surprise - became a Cambridge professor.
There are also lawyers, psychologists, anaesthetists and IT whiz kids in our midst. Proper grown-ups - but my guess is underneath it all we’re still the madcap teenagers we used to be.
The six who planned the original get-together have morphed into 29, with numbers growing daily as email ripples widen.
We’ve got an action-packed reunion weekend with trips to chocolate factories, wineries, and a nostalgic braai (barbecue) as the highpoint.
The local paper - the Franschhhoek Tatler - is planning to run a piece about the Zambian invasion and we’re all dizzy with delight at the prospect of meeting up and catching up after all these years.
The really strange thing for me is the feeling that I know them all so well - even though I’ve never met their partners, children or know anything about the triumphs and tragedies they’ve encountered along the way.
I guess the years between six and 16 are character forming and that no-one will have changed that much.
And I bet is we’re going to have a ball.
> Now please tell me your reunion stories - and whether I’m right to be so optimistic!