Now We are Sixty (or Not Quite) by Ms Paige Turner
On Saturday 16th November 2013, twenty ‘Class of 65-72’ met for lunch at the Croydon Park Hotel to celebrate being together and being either 60 or approaching that seventh decade.
I learnt something.
As I leant across our 60th birthday cake I said to a very lovely and blonde Ann (nee Brown) “Excuse me, you were in the same class as me for seven years but I never spoke to you.”
She replied, “I didn’t talk very much. I didn’t talk to you. How could I? You were all drama, words and French. I was all science and hermetically sealed.”
I bit my lip and looked down at my camera. “You don’t know how to work this do you? I’ve got to take a few photos for the Old Croydonians’ magazine.”
Well, Ann did. She told me that working a camera is just a template. Don’t jab at the buttons: work it out. Thanks, Ann.
Thus ensued one of the most interesting conversations I have had in a long time. I wished I had talked to Ann during my seven years at school. I missed out on having a friend who was informed, intelligent and elegant. I’m hoping Facebook and reunions will put pay to all that.
We are a diverse bunch of girls who now no longer need to compete to pass the finishing line and that’s not because we are ‘past it’! It’s because, I think, the empathy of losing parents, losing partners for an assortment of reasons and having lives that don’t always come up to scratch is more important than pretending that we’re first.
And minds work in different ways. Vive la difference.
Which is just as well, really as I’m off for my second residential at Cambridge this weekend for my Masters in Creative Writing and looking forward to seeing all those Liquorice Allsorts of writers once again.
The Gavin Extence author talk at Creative Ink for Writers went splendidly with almost 50 attendees and reading excerpts from The Universe versus Alex Woods just as splendidly, as always was Creative Ink actor Adrian Baker.
The nine writers’ names – whose stories made the coming Epublication A Dozen Promises – are posted on our new Creative Ink for Writers’ Facebook page so do go there and ‘like’. We raised £305 for the Hearts and Souls charity with the Promises Short Story competition.
I have one place left on Creative Ink for Writers’ Tuesday am ‘Get Inspired’ course starting on January 7th and two places left on the Thursday ‘Get that Book out of You’ course starting on January 9th. So email me if you are interested.