In early May this year, a group of 21 “old” girls met at a hotel in the Borders for few days of fun and shared memories.  We were all from the same class and left school between 1966 (4^th yr) and 1968 (6^th yr), making this, frighteningly, our 50^th anniversary.

This was not our first get together.  All those who can manage meet twice a year for lunch, usually in Edinburgh but latterly in Perth and massive thanks from every one of us go to Rona Tweedie, who organises them all and is seemingly indefatigable.  We also have a record of longer get-togethers which we take it in turns to arrange.  The first one was over 10 years ago when we re-visited Paris in the footsteps of our first school trip abroad.  This was such a success that roughly every four years we choose another location and do it all again!  So far, we’ve been to Matfen in Northumberland, Dunkeld, and this year, Dryburgh near St Boswells.  Because we meet so regularly, we are all familiar with each other’s life history since leaving school and I know I speak for us all when I say it has been a source of  reassurance to have such a firm support network of old chums.  I would urge anyone else who might be curious to know what’s happened to their old classmates to make the effort to organise similar get-togethers.  You’ll be amazed at how people’s lives have panned out and spread to the four corners of the globe.

Anyway, back to 2018 and Big Fun in The Borders.  We stayed at Dryburgh Abbey Hotel, who did us proud throughout despite, no doubt, severe provocation.  After travelling from the USA, Australia, Luxembourg, Norway, Orkney and all parts of the UK we gathered for our first dinner.  It was lucky for the other hotel guests that we were able to have a private dining room to ourselves as our noise levels would have drowned out normal conversations.  If you’d been a fly on the wall you’d have heard a lot of, “What on earth was the name of the girl who …..?” or “Do you remember the time we all …..?” or “You’ll never guess what happened to…..”.

On the first full day, summoning all the energy we could muster at our advanced age, which I hope would have been sufficient to make Miss Gibb proud, we split into groups to either climb the nearby Eildon Hills or walk along the banks of the Tweed to St Boswells, play a round of golf on the local course or visit Sir Walter Scott’s old home at Abbotsford near Galashiels.  A few also went to Floors Castle in Kelso or toured the ruins of Dryburgh Abbey.  That evening at dinner we were treated to a full programme of entertainment.  Elizabeth Blackwood (all maiden names used here, for ease of identification) had found an old school-days’ diary and caused a lot of out-loud laughter at some of the entries!  Thelma Good treated us to a couple of songs but undoubtedly the star of the evening was Joanna Mackay (who’d come all the way from Australia!) who is a trained opera singer and whose voice was a joy to listen to.  Miss Phillips would have swelled with pride to hear the beautiful voice of one of her pupils.

On our second full day the Eildon Mountaineers needed a gentler activity which involved retracing the steps of the previous day’s group in walking along the banks of the Tweed to St Boswells, where coffee and cake were consumed at the bookshop/café in the village before embarking on the second half of the circular walk back to Dryburgh.  That afternoon, still in the glorious sunshine which was a feature of this day, some of us were lucky enough to be able to visit the gardens at Mertoun, the private home of the Duke of Sutherland.  As there was one professional gardener amongst us, as well as several keen and expert amateurs, this was indeed a treat and they were able to speak knowledgeably with the head gardener.  The rest of us just enjoyed the sights and smells of this glorious and little-known gem.  That evening was our third and final dinner and this time we were seated at smaller tables so there was less shouting down the full length of the room!

Whilst checking out the following morning there was much dismay to learn that there had been a burglary in the hotel office during the night when, sadly, all the takings from a wedding the previous day had been lost.  However, not even that shock could dampen our spirits as we all took our leave amid much hugging and promises to catch up again soon.  We’d taken a vote and although the Dryburgh venue had been such a huge success and we were tempted to come back again for the next reunion in another few years, we finally voted for Inverness as our next venue and are now all looking forward to that.  If it’s as successful as Dryburgh we’ll be laughing.  Again.

Those present at Dryburgh:  Ronella Baillie, Jennifer Baird, Elizabeth Blackwood, Patricia Burns-Brown, Marlyn Cade, Ruth Coghill, Christine Crowe, Margaret Duncan, Susan Duncan, Jane Edwards, Thelma Good, Sheila Hervey, Paula Hinton, Joanna Mackay, Carol Napier, Kathleen Smith, Morag Smith, Rona Tweedie, Jacqueline Turner, Judith Wood, Jean Wyllie,