On Wednesday night, I retired to bed and slept soundly. I was at peace with the world. Earlier in the evening, I had been part of a most surreal meeting. The Zoom invite had been entitled ‘Moonlight Premiere’. The attendees were three of the ‘stars’ – Paul Parris, Lennox Cameron, and my good self.
Paul and I had penned the play when we were in the Third Year (Year 9 in new money) back in 1979. Our English teacher/form tutor at Langdon Park, East London, arranged for us to act it out and captured the precious exchanges on video. This gift sat on a cassette in my garage ever since until recently, when a reconnection via email with Lennox (now going by the name of Lex) put in motion a recorded postal delivery and a tentative attempt to see if the contents might be converted into digital form.
Wednesday night represented the moment of truth.
What a blessing.
The three of us, now 58/57, shared time and space for the first time in over 43 years. The connection was instant and unconditional. I’d kept in touch with Paul remotely as he periodically settled in Chicago, Canada, and most recently the South of France. One of the few occasions we were in the same room was when he acted as one of my Best Men when I got married some 27 years ago. But Lex – well, until recently, he had remained a cherished friendship deep in my memory. Here he was, looking back at me, greatly changed but oh so familiar. Little mannerisms and expressions took me back in an instant. He had become a successful musician, and I was proud of him.
And then we pressed ‘Play’ on our shared screen.
Grainy, though unmistakable, images appeared to our shared delight. Our memories of each other and that blessed time as mates manifested before our eyes.
The 38-minute production portraying our conviction to oppose overt racism took over two and a half hours to review, punctuated as it was with laughter, stories, and freeze frames to try and identify old buddies who had vacated our minds for more than four decades. How often I was able to pre-empt characters’ delivery of lines was simply fascinating.
The ease and acceptance we shared on that call is quite beyond words. The depth of our love for each other (and the memories of classmates who attended via video) was moving – deeply human. Seeking explanations, we recognised it was a different era of schooling. We experienced a degree of freedom to grow - to become. As a teacher, I could find few comparisons to the structured accountability that determined subsequent generations' experience of school.
Even the organisational structure we enjoyed brought about a deep sense of belonging. Cohorts of children from each primary school were kept intact to form a distinctive form group. Paul and I were together at Devons, and, along with many of the kids who shared our formative memories, our shared identity and relationships were reinforced as we moved to secondary and became class 1 O. Bizarrely, we stayed together for every curriculum subject, moving around the school as an established collective. Ditto for 2 O and again for 3 O.
Another unique variable was that during that period in Years 8 & 9, we frequented the Annexe over at Limehouse before returning to the Main Building at Chrisp St as members of the Upper School. Oh, what a transition had taken place from when we left it at the end of Year 7. In this final phase, CSE/‘O’ level options interrupted to some extent, but our form group and non-exam subjects such as PE ensured we stayed connected until our journey was complete at the end of 5 O.
The affinity that prolonged shared experience brought about was profound. The majority of us started in primary, passed through various rites of passage, and then each dispersed to make our way into the world.
The three of us paused to recognise the power a teacher’s belief and warmth had on our lives. Mr Searle - Chris, now 80, joined us at the beginning of the call on the phone, but tech issues prevented him from taking the red carpet. We calculated that he would have been a sprightly 35 when he made his guest appearance.
Oh, that I might have had such a lasting influence on the tens of thousands of students who populated my career as an educator. And how it became apparent that we remembered other staff of that era with great affection (even those who caned me!).
One scene on the screen stopped us in our tracks. We were back in a whole school assembly. For a moment we were just content to be absorbed in the remote company of our childhood mates even though we couldn’t quite make out who was who. Shaking our heads, we realised that everyone in the image was now in their late fifties and wondered how many had since passed.
On my website, I had placed a quote that encapsulated my perspective on education: ‘There should be less of the factory and more of the garden’.
Oh, how we were allowed to grow from these deep, collective roots.
And so we finished the call to get on with our lives as middle-aged chaps, slightly changed by the respite this reconnection granted us. We are reassured we hold a love for each other that transcends time and circumstances – one that will last until we each take our last breath. But before then, the brief recording Lex made at the start of our call to capture the occasion will act as the prologue for when we repeat the reunion at 85, looking back and laughing at how young we looked at 58 – God willing.