Reunion news from Alan Piper....
The reunion came about at the suggestion of Terry Smith's wife who is a great devotee of Friends Reunited.
Terry lives in Canada and we've always stayed on contact but last year he endured major surgery involving a liver transplant, and having decided subsequently to come over to the UK for a week, Linda asked me to organize a reunion of contemporaries as the climax of that week, I having bought The Sun at Coniston about 3 years ago.
I can't pretend I didn't have doubts but finally took the plunge, spent £5 on F-R and emailed virtually everybody on their 1971 list who's name I recognised as contemporary. Most didn't reply but the few who did were immediately keen on the idea and together we gradually tracked down people from other sources, personal contacts, the OB site, the Register of Veterinary Surgeons!! and so on.
Ultimately we had 13 OB's lined up plus a few partners. Unhappily 2 were forced to cancel at the last minute but the rest made it and had a great time poring over old photographs, chatting, laughing, walking in the rain on the Saturday and generally enjoying a memorably fun weekend.
Some came tremendous distances; from Norfolk, London, Somerset, Aberystwyth, Isle of Skye (only because Fred Longster can't organise a diary and happened to be booked in there as well !), Canada of course, but the prize must go to Jon Lamming who could only get here for one night but came up from South Devon anyway.
It was a wonderful time and I'm sure it'll be repeated.
Alan Piper
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