Byline: Liz Jones
Wondering whether the seeds of her unhappy life were sown at school, YOU columnist Liz Jones searches out some old friends from the class of 75 I'M standing in a hall with parquet flooring and leaded windows. The smell is sort of the Louis Vuitton Handbags same - chicken marengo mixed with plimsolls - but the hall has changed. It's still wood panelled, with big double doors through to the assembly hall, but there's a big reception desk plonked in the middle, with phones and computers, and everywhere are brightly coloured posters and paintings. I've changed, too. The last time I stood in this hall I was 16, dressed in a gingham shirt, navy jumper and skirt, and brown, definitely non-regulation Freeman Hardy Willis platforms (we were supposed to own indoor and outdoor shoes, but my parents couldn't afford both). I'd come to see the headmistress, Mrs Lansdell, to explain why I'd decided to switch schools. Her office was to the left; even today I feel nervous as I peek in: it's full of the grey technology of modern-day education.
I have a photo taken a year or so before I left Brentwood County High School in Essex, which is just outside London; the school is now a co-ed comprehensive. Looking at the picture, I'm not the ugliest girl in my form, but I'm definitely the saddest. Back then I felt ugly, hideous. I always had a letter from my mum to get me out of swimming lessons. The communal showers for use after hockey or netball filled me with fear. I always felt different to the other girls: they were giggly, confident, carefree. I was wracked with nerves. They wore bras and tights and had periods. I wore vests, white socks that were so old the elastic had worn out, and I would never have periods: my anorexia had kicked in by then.
Fake ParmigianiBut I had hope that one day everything would be OK. Standing here now, aged 50, waiting for the other girls in that photo to turn up, not one of whom I have seen since we were 16, I thought about how the last time I'd been in this hall my mum would have been at home chopping vegetables for one of her stews, and I think of how she is now: bedridden for almost a decade, in constant pain, she barely knows me. I think of my dad, who last time I stood here was out there, somewhere, in his sharp suit, pink tie and Cary Grant tan. He has been dead for 11 years. And look at me now: the BMW convertible, the Prada outfit, the big career. But if I could tell my 16-year-old self what I would go through over the next 34 years I'm sure I'd have said, when I .
learned about the hours spent at the office, the stress, the sacrifice, 'Are you insane? No thanks.' The reason I've returned to my school is to find out whether my future was already mapped out for me, determined by what I was like as a child, or if I brought my life on myself. And how on earth did everyone else turn out? Next is Tracey. She still lives near the school, .
The girls who have agreed to turn up on this Saturday morning are Michelle West, Tracey Bartlett, Jane Cooper, Gillian Saunders and Heather McCheyne (now Durie). I'm hoping to meet Karen Rouse, my best friend, who is standing next to me in the school photo on page 32 (I always thought she looked like Karen Carpenter, although she ruined her conker-shiny hair somewhat with a feather cut) at a later date, as she has moved to Hong Kong. First to arrive is Michelle. I thought I'd forgotten what she looked like, but the moment we hug I remember: the big, dark eyes, the ridiculously extravagant eyelashes. I even remember the way she gestures with her hands. She lives 100 miles away now, has been married to Peter for 30 years, and works for a charity that offers counselling to children from broken h
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