Class of 1987
On Saturday 20th May 2017, the graduating class of 1987 were hosted at The Old Palace for our 30 year anniversary. With our last formal reunion a full ten years ago, a get-together was well overdue and was approached with much anticipation and excitement. Our year group organisers, Monica Reeve-Tucker (née Burroughs), and Annie Dunster (néeWestlake), had done a marvellous job tracking down those of us who not only had attended Mayfield between entering the First Year in 1980 and leaving at the end of UVI in 1987, but all those who had joined and left in the intervening years too. This was no small feat but even with the wonders of social media, sadly too many of our cohort have disappeared from our lives. If you are reading this, and would like to reconnect with your old school friends from any year, you can do so through Claire Ball, the Alumnae Coordinator at school.
The day of our 30 year reunion was a tremendous success. Although not a warm day, the sun shone brightly and greeted us with a warmth of spirit as more than 40 of us gathered in The Courtyard at The Old Palace having been adorned with name tags by the indomitable Claire Ball, without whose help our day would not have happened. As we squealed sounds of greeting after shrieks of recognition, we settled into catching up after our absences. In some cases, the name tags we wore were completely superfluous but there were also those faces who it took some time for us to marry up to their more familiar name. Older we may all certainly be, but even the passing of 30 years left us surprisingly recognisable to most!
Antonia Beary, the current Headmistress at Mayfield, passed around The Courtyard serving Pimms and Elderflower juice but it was only as she moved us from The Courtyard through to lunch that she formally introduced herself to those gathered. The more familiar faces we had been hoping to see did not disappoint, and we were thrilled to have both Sr Jean and Sr TJ joining us for the afternoon, both of them looking just as they had when we left school.
Lunch was a delicious meal of roast meat, roast veg and gravy which was devoured with dessert to follow too. The current students at Mayfield are certainly well looked after! We were delighted to have the opportunity to meet some of the current crop when we were taken on tours of the school in small groups, lead by some of the boarders. This was the favourite part of the day for many of us and is testament to all the happy memories that remain years later of the time spent at the school.
The Old Cornelian SUMMER 2017
Our guides were most patient with us as we explained to them that “in our day”, School Hall was split into three classrooms and was used to set out our trunks ready for packing at the end of term. The library, of course, wasn’t the Textiles Studio and was attached to the Concert Hall, and The Hub was something we could only have imagined in our dreams! But not everything had changed, and large parts of the school were just as we remembered, not least the cubicles in Gabs (now Connelly), the refectory and the old Gym.
Unchanged too was the Chapel, and after our tours, we gathered there for a wonderful service by Fr Peter Fitchwho spoke to us about the importance of friendship and connections. The Chapel is as beautiful as it always was and brought back such fond memories of The Live Crib, the weekly Sunday service (without the particularly nerve racking moments when you were up at the lectern deciphering something from the Old Testament in front of the whole school), choir practices and, for some of us, weddings too.
Before it was time to leave, the school treated us to a wonderful afternoon tea of cakes, scones, sandwiches and other treats to give us a little more time to trade stories and catch up on the events that we had experienced in our lives since school. More and more, those name tags became unnecessary and the surprise of finding like minds and common experiences was sometimes overwhelming.
The school could not have done more to make us feel welcome, and hosted us with such generosity throughout the day for which we are all tremendously grateful. The school’s support of alumnae is extraordinary and we were overwhelmed to enjoy the presence of not only Sisters Jean and TJ for the day but also Miss Beary and Mrs Ball, despite the reunion falling on a weekend. For all those of our year group who had travelled from afar to join the gathering (including those who had flown across from Sydney and Hong Kong!), those who had brought their families back to the school for the first time and those who still live near the village, none of us regretted the decision to return to Mayfield for the day.
Roll on 2027 for our 40 year reunion!! 23
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