WOSA

www.wosa.org.uk

TIME: Friday 3rd – Sunday 5th, October 2014

PLACE: The Skiddaw Hotel, Keswick

WHO: Micheal & Sheena (Chapman), John & Gina (Webster), Joe & Wendy (Henderson), Berry (Ess), Pam (Wilson), Sue (Williams), Robin (Wannop), Hugh (Routledge), Tom & Karen (Hughes), Dylan (Edwards), Judy (PrescoU) & Geoff LiU, Jane (Pennie) & David Harries, Kate (Urwin) & Tony Adamson.

We all started to arrive during the Friday Afternoon, most booking into the hotel but others staying nearby including Tom in a campervan !

Once everyone had checked in we had a casual dinner in the bar when conversations from the first re-­‐union 3 years ago were re-­‐commenced. These continued on progressing to the resident’s lounge until the early hours of Saturday morning !

SATURDAY: After a hearty breakfast, we all walked down to the lake, those who were up for it, took the launch down the lake for one stop to start our great expedition and take on Walla Crag, and those more sensible had a leisurely coffee and chat. For the brave walkers, the weather was, thank goodness, kind to us, the rain stopping as we started our ascent, and apart from a heavy burst of hailstones towards the end we had good sunny spells. The route was well planned by our local Guide John(Webster) and he had very kindly made sure we passed his house so we ended our expedition by having a sumptuous buffet lunch provided by his wife Gina. We gathered in the Gretna Suite of the Hotel around 7.00pm and the main entertainment was provided by Berry (Ess) who had badgered most of us into providing some fond memories of our times at Brookfield. She provided scripts to be read out by someone other than the author and the rest of us had to guess who had written it. There were some very revealing tales and some hilarious ones.

“One person thought they could conceal having a ciggie by smoking in the bath whereby the steam would hide the smoke, what she had not worked out was that steam has no smell but smoke does !!!! Enter Ma Bainbridge whereby the culpit used her barefoot to stub out her ciggie !!!”

“Someone laughed so hard that they ended up wetting themselves on stage at the end of a play in front of the whole school”

“Did Mr Davies really put a saucepan on his head and sing “Sospan Bach” ? “ “Mr Burns calling someone – “Yours as daft as my dog and it’s a daft dog !”

“The death of Laurence Hepplewaite (Twib) -­‐ heartbreaking”

“A downstairs music room with a tall male, (cigarette smelling) rather aged music teacher, chucking chairs around in fury”

“Missions Impossible 1 – 6?, which included up to 9 of us in trips to the girls’ dorm, night time beck jumping, swimming in the coldest swimming pool in the world, and a visit to the fair in Wigton. (Tom Cruise eat your heart out!!!!!!) BUT it could’nt last and inevitably 9 members of the MI Group got caught by Froggy and were excluded for 1 term.

“Helen (Simpson) slamming a desk lid on my subbuteo goalkeeper, Dave Hollins, snapping him off at the ankles, he was never the same again !!!”

“Walking on a 24 mile midnight walk with Liz (Hughan)”

“Alan Bell shouting out in his sleep – There’s Indians in my porridge“

“Robin (Wannop) reading the beano under the desk in a Latin Class”

“Being forced to wear shorts by my parents and having to endure the freezing cold standing on the wing in rugby matches, never getting a pass, and suffering the early stages of hypothermia.”

“Somewhere
Between the six o’clock news
And the magic roundabout
Reality broke in
Cuba, Kennedy, the ‘66 election
We listened perched on pipes

The walls of our flimsy cocoon
Exposed

Eventually we emerged
Roughly ready for the world
Not brilliantly educated
Yet moulded by principle and example
And by the experience of a unique community-­‐
BROOKFIELD”

Obviously Joe (Henderson) has suffered the least amount of memory loss, because he won the prize for guessing the authors of 13 out of the 17 “Memories” read out.

During this we had a buffet, and of course copious glasses of beer, wine, gin (I now know where Gina Webster got her name from !!) and other appropriate beverages were consumed.

The reminiscing went on again until the early hours

Sunday morning and a surprisingly very bright and cheerful group walked in the rain down to the lake and we had a departing coffee in the Theatre on the Lake Cafe.

To be continued in 2018  

Robin Wannop

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