Reunion May 2009
at
Werneth Golf Club
on Friday 1st. May 2009
Again, arranged by Val and Pam, and again with help
from Steve Walton and John Barlow.
Our grateful thanks to them all.
Ken's Account of the Evening:-
This was our second visit to Werneth Golf Club within a year, and we were certainly not disappointed.
Once again, it was organised by Pam and Val with help from Steve Walton.
The format - simply a buffet and drinks, and the whole evening to move around and talk - seems to be the most popular. Indeed, the simpler we make it, the more popular it becomes, with numbers passing thirty for the first time, and including a high proportion of "first-timers".
Rosemary travelled from Wales and stayed over to be with us. To do this, she had to abandon her budgies for a lengthy period, and we can only hope that by now she has been forgiven by her feathered friends.
She insisted that we took a photograph of the "St. Thomas Street North Group". It seems that this is a very exclusive group, requiring for membership that one attended Greenhill whilst living on St. Thomas Street North, and that one is a current member of this site. We have pleasure in publishing this photograph of the entire group - both her and David!
For much of the evening, she seemed very happy to be renewing acquaintance with Isabel and Mick, pictured below with John Barlow.
Ian Wright, unable to make it to our last get-together, travelled up from the south coast to be with us this time, and Dave and Marilyn (Topping) Parkin came over from Blackpool, and then set off to drive home at midnight.
Also new to the fold was Ann Halsall, pictured here (right) with Kevin.
Alf Selby was able to join us this time. Alf has provided us with much material for the site of course, and we are very grateful to him for preserving these items for all this time. With him was his wife Margaret (Trotter), and Margaret's sister Sheila, all ex-Greenhillians........
It was Sheila whom we "traced" a few months ago after an enquiry (through our site's "Contact Us" system) by an old friend of hers, and we were delighted to be able to put them in touch with each other again.
Yet another welcome addition was Jenny (Ratigan), no less, pictured here on the right, with Iris (McKinley) and Mallory (Lord):-
All this is not to say that we were unhappy to see so many "old hands", of course!
Trevor and Beryl (left) appeared to be in the peak of health after their quite scary problems last year, and Colin (Platt) was in fine form - captured below in perhaps his only serious moment of the night!
Inspector Morse (under his cover-name of Stuart Vaudrey) is now happily recovered from his hip implant of Christmas Eve, and was giving a passable imitation of the bionic man as he moved around the room. He is pictured here with Barbara (Andrew) and Beryl.
- and no such get-together at the golf club could be the same without Steve Walton of course. We are indebted for his help with the arrangements.
Laurie was his usual self, in spite of what he described as horrific injuries to his person - pictured here with his badly injured second finger, to which he had suffered tendon damage prior to the reunion.
Serious though it was, the general consensus seemed to be that David's snapped Achilles tendon and the associated 6-week recovery period rather upstaged what people in the I.T. industry presumably refer to as "finger trouble"!
We do of course wish them both a complete and speedy recovery, and trust that Joan's sufferings with her injured husband will soon be at an end.
Pat was with us last July, but had been deserted by Vince, who was away shooting in Sweden. It was great to have them with us as a couple once more.
- and this time a serious-looking Allan Clarke:-
Our organisers (Val and Pam) seemed to be very camera-shy this time around, but we did manage to catch Val with Joan and Barbara while we were trying to shepherd people together for a group photograph. Anybody with experience of herding cats will sympathise with the problems which we experienced in this respect!
As for the Group Photographs, we did eventually manage to take some...
The Lads:-
...and the Lasses...
...and finally one that we've been trying to take for a long time - six married couples, all who met at Greenhill, and who can boast an average of over 40-years of marriage. So much for the success of the Greenhill Sexual Segregation Policy!
Last, but by no means least, some photographs that Ian took on his trip back to Oldham.
I think that they are fascinating, if for no other reason than that they provide some insight into where a returning exile goes, and what he sees which is of interest to him:-
Again, our thanks to Val and Pam and Steve and John for organising us so well.
As usual, as people departed at close to midnight, there was the usual complaint....
"Not enough time to talk - and why did we wait so long to do this sort of thing?"
Next one? Stay tuned to the site