A Summer Party


Like all good things it began with a chance remark sitting round our office desk one cold autumn morning. The Headmaster had expressed a heartfelt wish not to have Prize Giving again in the Sports Hall and we had started wondering about a marquee.


‘Let’s have a summer party instead of a Ball this year. A come-as-you–are-or-fancy-dress party, with a tribute band!’ And that was that.


A friend of a friend sang in an ABBA tribute band, some other friends had a catering business in the village back home and they had a friend who had a marquee business – a few phone calls and it was on the calendar and months of organising menus, colour schemes, party bags, photographers, raffles, chiller trailers, revolving star lights, fairy lights and flowers for the Pavilion, tables and cloths and napkins, crockery and cutlery began and left us reeling, and realising that, should our employment at Hallfield ever be terminated, we could start a party planning business.


A lot of people said afterwards it was one of the best evenings they had had at Hallfield – certainly the number of people dancing (should we have hired a bigger dance floor?) bore testament to the popularity of ABBA. The staff contingent, all at least 6 inches taller in the platform boots, had done their best to clear the costume hire shops of blonde wigs and anything made of sparkling lycra, and the parents too rose to the challenge of dressing like a group of singers that were popular well before most of them were born. Some of us who lived through those heady days of Waterloo and Dancing Queen shunned the spangley cat suits, firmly believing the advice that if you see fashion coming round for a second time you are too old to wear it!


The weather, the food, the music, the atmosphere were all perfect and if you didn’t come – you missed a treat !


2009-2010


81


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