Danskcolin: Saturday November 15th 2025 "Do YOU sometimes look up old friends, then wished you hadn't?!!!!"

Yes, Friends, do you sometimes make a conscious effort to look up old classmates, and then wish you hadn't? It's a common experience isn't it, and sometimes I think it's better to draw a line under old relationships and just "move on" !!!!

Local man Barry Cass didn't heed that advice, however, and got a rather uncomfortable "reality check" when he looked in on a class reunion this week, possibly against his better judgment, according to the lead story in today's local Onion News for East Hampshire. Did you see the story?

Poor Cass !!!!!

But it's certainly an awful warning to us all, isn't it, never to try and "put the clock back" and try to recreate those "golden years", when life seemed somehow so much simpler!

The Onion story, however, brings a wry smile to the mouths of me and my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois, this morning, here at our new home in rural, semi-grassy Liphook, Hampshire.

my medium-to-long-suffering wife Lois and me - a recent picture

"But why the wry smile on your mouths this morning, Colin?", I hear you cry.

Well, seeing as how you're obviously "gagging" to know (!), here's why - Lois and I currently have a weekend house-guest, our old friend Jen, whom Lois, in particular, has known from early childhood. And Jen is currently reading the autobiography of her old classmate from the 1960's, TV's Miriam Margolyes, documentary-presenter, and "Professor Sprout" in the Harry Potter films.

(left) actress and presenter, TV's Miriam Margoyles (84) as she is today,

and (right) as 'Professor Sprout' in the Harry Potter films

According to Miriam's autobiography, the high school class that both she and Jen were members of, was apparently "riven with snobbery and divisions, which Jen hadn't realised at the time, so the revelation comes as a bit of a shock to Jen this morning, to put it mildly!

Miriam says that their high school class was split between the 'posh' City Girls, of whom Miriam was one - the ones whose parents were rich enough to pay the school fees, and, on the other hand, the 'unposh' County Girls, who were intelligent but poor, girls whose education was funded by the County Council: the shame of it haha !!!! Needless to say, our old friend Jen was in the latter category, but had had no idea at the time, that she was being quietly "looked down on, a bit".

Poor Jen !!!!!

the scenes in our house this morning, as (left) the autobiography of Jen's old classmate Miriam

lies on a table, while in the distance a shell-shocked Jen looks out on mine and Lois's tiny back garden,

trying to come to terms with the book's shocking revelations about their schooldays (right)

What a crazy world we live in !!!!!!

However, on the more optimistic side, Miriam reveals in her book, that since leaving school she has managed to become closer to the County Girls, believing that it's "vital to cross barriers which stop us appreciating the differences between us": surely a green light for Jen to finally ring her up and settle some old scores haha!

A few years ago, the two women - Miriam and Jen - featured in a Radio Times article that Miriam had written as a "taster" for some new series or other she was due to be presenting, which was a nice touch.

flashback to April 2022: Miriam Margoyles' article in the Radio Times,

featuring a class photo in which both herself (ringed in brown)

and our old friend Jen (ringed in green) are clearly visible

In the 2022 article, Miriam admitted that she was "a very naughty schoolgirl", who was always being dismissed from class, i.e. sent out of the room.

Isn't it funny how the "naughty ones" always are the ones who become famous in later life. I myself, at my grammar school, sat next to the "naughtiest boy in the class", who narrowly avoided severe punishment for... [seven words omitted from the text - Ed] ...., but who later became a respected writer and biographer himself, Editor of the widely respected Times Newspaper's literary supplement (TLS) and even a judge on the Booker Prize for Literature, would you believe!

What a crazy world we live in !!!! [You've done that one once already. Just saying!!! - Ed]

some typical articles in the TLS (Times Literary Supplement)

But there's an important question here, too, isn't there. Should our teachers be excluding, or sending out of the room, the well-behaved students in the class, so they can give their full attention to the "villains of the piece"?

I wonder.....!!!!!

11:00 All that said, mine and Lois's main job today will be to take our poor old shell-shocked friend Jen "out of herself", by showing her some of the lovely countryside around our new home here in Liphook.

Jen is clearly today feeling a little shaken' (but not stirred!!!) by Miriam's revelations, so as a special favour to Jen (only kidding, Jen, if you're reading this!), Lois and I break our long-standing rule about "only doing one walk a day", by going out both in the morning, to local Radford Park, and then again in the afternoon to a nearby beauty spot, the 1000 ft crater known as The Devil's Punchbowl, finishing up in the Punchbowl cafe for a cup of tea and a scone, which is nice.

(left) nearby Radford Park, here in Liphook, Hampshire, and (right) the 1000ft deep

natural crater known as The Devil's Punchbowl, just over the county line in Surrey.

I see some of our neighbours are watching me going off for our second walk, so I expect I'll have to put up months of "ragging" about the incident, and months of having to endure the temporary moniker of being known locally as "Two Walks Colin", which I'll just have to bear with my usual good grace, "for my sins" (!).

[That's enough exclamation marks in brackets (!) - Ed]

20:00 And this evening, all three of us shattered by our exertions today, "plop" down on the sofa (Lois and me) and on our lovely IKEA "Bingsta" recliner (Jen), to watch, or to partially "doze through" this week's re-run of an old "Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club" variety show from the 1970's, the series that tried to recreate the atmosphere of a typical working men's club somewhere in the north of England.

Tonight, club chairman and "turns manager", the grim-faced, ungenial Colin Crompton, is in good form, interrupting the acts with fearless abandon (!), for what he obviously feels are important announcements to members.

He's apparently seen tonight on the phone to Buckingham Palace no less, so you can't accuse him of lack of ambition, to put it mildly!!! Here he is, "on the blower" live during a show, and trying to get the audience to quieten down their chatter for 5 minutes (!).

He's hoping that our then Queen, the late Queen Elizabeth, will consent to come and make an appearance at the club's forthcoming "Command Performance", but it seems Her Majesty has "got something else on", for the night in question.