The Albany High School Class of 1986 Reunion
On the 22nd May 1986, the security system of a large Chorley Comprehensive School failed, and accidentally released 240+ 16 year olds out into the wild. These bright, shiny, newly-minted members of society; skittered left, right and centre; scattering rough books, homework diaries and bits of uniform behind them as they went. Mr Banks was very cross and had Mr Ward and Mr Hewitt stay behind after school to clear up the mess. That was twenty five years ago.
On Saturday 21st May 2011, a bunch of them were re-captured, shoved in a pub, forced to drink vast quanities of alcohol and take photographs of one another. This is Albany High School Class of 1986 Reunion.
A note to my first time readers:
Hello, this is Rachel Collier. Well I used to be Rachel Collier, I'm Rachel Lewis now. Married with a teenage daughter and living in Bedfordshire. Remember Me? If you didn't, never mind. I was a mousey thing in Canterbury 5 that never had much to say for herself and most likely passed under your radar. However, I turned into someone who loves to write and for the last five years I've written a blog, documenting my daily life and anything else that piques my interest. I write affectionately, I write about the things I love and I hope in reading this you get the sense of how much I loved last night, meeting up with you all again, how much I value the time I had at Albany and the friendships I had there. I do like to poke fun, I do like to make people laugh, but if I do it to you it's because I like you. I'm never intentionally nasty about anyone. I hope you appreciate what I've written here and please, feel free to add a comment at the bottom, but PLEASE TELL ME WHO YOU ARE!
Ultimately, these are my recollections, so apologies if they don't tally with what you remember. Frankly, with the state you were in, I'm surprised you remembered where you lived! LOL!
Enjoy!
And if you don't like what I've written, complain to Miss Newsham. Oh she's dead? Ah, tough shit ;-)
What Happens in Chorley Stays in Chorley.
Dear Friends,
I don't quite know where to start in writing about last night. Mainly, because every time I think about, it I start grinning like an idiot and laughing my head off. It was fun. It was BRILLIANT fun! I loved every minute. For really boring medical reasons, I can't currently drink; but I had the very great pleasure in watching each and every one of you go from slightly nervous and not quite sure you'd made the right decision in coming; to flinging yourself around Sir Henry Tate's in glorious, wanton abandon, and some of you getting your nipples out.
In keeping with our tough-guy image as products of a 'school of hard knocks' Lancashire Comprehensive, the drugs were passed around. Sadly, as we're now all fortysomethings, this turned out to be no more interesting than Gaviscon, with the odd Ibuprofen thrown in for the dicky knee. Hats off to the lads! I've rarely seen more accomplished examples of 'Dad Dancing' and I'm sure your offspring are very proud of you at family occasions - or they will be after they've finished their trauma therapy. If there is one event that will have significantly contributed to the laughter lines on my face, it was last night, but I don't care. I'll take lines as deep as the Marianas Trench if I can make every night as fun as that!
I'm sure, if you're anything like me, the last 25 years have been a mixture of ups and downs; but last night, it was as if all the stuff that's ended up chalked on our individual slates had been wiped clean. We were exactly who we were in 1986. There was no baggage, no stuff to deal with, just a bunch of people who were in the same year group together going out and having a damn good time and answering the question. "Whatever happened to so and so?"
Well, in the case of the lads, we can say that most of you seem to have gone bald. This is very amusing, as some of you *cough*Joe Hilton *cough* had waaay more hair than we did in 1986! And it was also a bit hard to tell you all apart, so apologies if we called you the wrong name at any point. I am so glad that you've all opted for the sensible option when it comes to hair loss. Obviously, Mr Mozley will be very sad that you've eschewed his tonsorial leading... *gets horrible comb-over flashback*.
Girls, you were all fabulous and I pretty much got you all named, apart from Jo, whose surname I pulled out of the air later. So apologies to my parents if they were woken up by me shouting 'Yeaman!' at quarter to four this morning. I was amused that I only recognised Amanda Bibby when she turned side-on. She sat next to me in maths for two years and that was pretty much how I was used to seeing her!
I've got many memories of school and one of the abiding ones was Craig Blamire asking me in English once if I'd swallowed a dictionary. Apparently, he thought I had a big vocab, or a big arse - one of the two. This last Christmas, because I have a deep desire to be a writer, my husband bought me an absolutely enormous dictionary. On Christmas Day when I opened it I did comment that Craig Blamire would be very happy that I had a really BIG dictionary to get my teeth into. So it was lovely to see Craig, especially when Marie didn't recognise him at first until he starting arsing about. "Oh that's Craig!" she shouted. It's amusing what you remember about people.
Being VERY sober when everyone around you is VERY drunk can sometimes make for the most difficult evenings, but not last night. Most of you know very little about what happened to me after I left Albany and now's not the time to talk about it; other than to say that I have rarely enjoyed the company of a big group of people more and it's testament to just how fabulous you all are that I got the confidence the come along and got the confidence to stay. If I can say one personal thing, it's that sometimes life, through circumstances, gets squashed out of you and you guys did a lot of healing, a lot of bolstering and did me an awful lot of good last night. Thank you so much!
A BIG THANK YOU to those who put it together, it was a great night and the photographs that are currently filling up my NewsFeed on Facebook just make me grin like a Cheshire Cat.
Albany Class of 1986: We may not have attended the most prestigious school on the planet and anyone who has got children going through the over-regimented education system now, will appreciate how shockingly left to our own devices we were back then. But despite everything, we came out the other end as fabulous people, who even 25 years later know how to have a laugh and how to embarrass their kids (which you will agree is one of the perks of the job). So hear this:
YOU ROCK. BIG TIME. ALL OF YOU!
Now go out there and continue to be monumentally awesome and I hope to see you again sometime.
Much Love
Rachel Collier
Canterbury 5 xx
P.S. Regarding what REALLY happened last night, No, I promise I won't blog about it if you trade me several million merits and a week's worth of early lunch passes.
...Oh and those special pictures of Mr Latham you have.... :D
Albany High School Class of 1986
As seen on Crimewatch :D
