2010 Reunion

Groundhog Day in Aberystwyth. It’s Friday night, Aber Town are playing Llanelli and it’s a 1-1 Draw. We’ve been here before. Maybe it happens every Friday night in Aberystwyth and we just drop in once a year. Anyway, Llanelli will go on to come second in the league (again) and Aber Town will just fail to qualify for the Champions League (again).

But something is different this Friday night in the Directors Box that Tiggy Bates has arranged for us (again). The dark strip than ran across the window at exactly eye-level from the seated position has been removed. This had been put there so that players could not see the rich people drinking alcohol during the game apparently (this is West Wales after all). The removal has the startling effect of the spectators actually being able to see the game . Moreover the players actually got on with playing and didn’t storm the Box demanding prawn sandwiches and drink. Who would have thought it?

There was a slight hitch though: a double booking. The young programme sellers who have voluntarily sold programmes throughout the long, cold and dark winter were also booked into the Box. Derrick Spragg is sent in to sort it out and he duly evicts the young upstarts and we tuck into the vast amount of food and drink they thought was theirs. There is so much that we start looking for the programme sellers to help us, but Derrick has terrified them and they have fled. Actually the drink is the bigger problem: Tiggy has stocked the ‘fridge based on his memory of us of 40 years ago. There has been a sharp fall in alcohol capacity and a sharp increase in female influence over the intervening years.

There is a whisper of a swish tapas bar in the town that might be an idea for next year. But that would not be Aber on a Friday night and we would miss the 1-1 draw with Llanelli in between the single can of beer (or, more usually now, the glass of chardonnay) and the sandwiches - and the chips that always arrive when you have just finished eating. No,tapas and Aber just do not sound right together.

Saturday. The survivors of 60s Aber are a hardy crowd, even as their ages creep inexorably towards the year of their arrival in the town. Conversation may have moved on from footy,birds and beer (well, in the lads’ case; we never knew what girls talked about. Probably us…) to the pleasures of retirement, hip replacement operations and the technology of new knees, but they are still up for a walk to Clarach. Well some are - but even they start to have their doubts when Mike and Shan Pickard arrive on in splendidly professional Alpine walking gear. It was quite a relief when they joined the less energetic members of the group in taking the Cliff Railway to the top of Constitution Hill. From the top of Consti Aberystwyth shimmers beneath us, bathed in glorious sunshine and the Bay sweeping into the hazy distance of a pure cobalt-blue sky. A heart stopping sight - though there is a worry that it might be literally so for those who actually climbed the hill.

Ken Passmore, wonderful organiser though he is, proves that he has no sense of direction when getting a sub-group of us lost when you would have thought it difficult to do, since to get to Clarach you only have to keep the sea on your left. We end up stumbling down steep and muddy slopes through a forest that, rather scarily, had signs of human habitation. It felt eerily like a scene out of “Deliverance”.

An ice-cream at the amusement centre at Clarach was a fair reward for our exertions. An attempt to move a bench so that we could all sit around one table together was repulsed by the young girl who served us, her welcome being every bit as chilly as the ice-cream she sold us. Watching an assembled group of former senior managers, teachers, department heads and head masters being cowed by a very young girl was fascinating, but years in the system have made us all so law abiding. Less Marlon Brando, more “The Mild Ones” now. The arrival of a densely muscled and tattooed security guard a few minutes later, though, did perhaps reinforce the wisdom of such meekness.

A wonderful walk back, since Ken had been relieved of navigational responsibilities, and the arrival at the top of the hill with the stunning sight of Aber below again took away any breath that still remained within us. Waste is not to be encouraged, so those of us with return tickets for the Cliff Railway took the train back down.

Saturday afternoon and it was time for golf for those who play (and in some cases for those who don’t). Others rested, strolled around the town or took coffee in old haunts. Wise men such as Spraggy had eschewed the walk to focus on winning the Aber and District League Annual Golf Challenge at Capel Bangor, a smashing little 9 hole course that is remarkably pretty on such a sunny day. However, it proved no challenge at all to Bruce Roughton who won convincingly, though off a handicap so big it could only have come from California. Still he had come from California with his family and deserved something - if only for the wonderful story of his father-in-law being arrested as a vagrant when he visited them from Aber. Jeanette Drumm won the Aber and District League Women’s Supporters Cup. I came a very poor 2^nd in that.

Having a drink outside the golf club, listening to the Grand National and soccer results was bliss indeed. Especially since in the Beryl Kettle organised Grand National Sweep my horse I had drawn came last, which meant that I got my money back. Quite who won the other prizes was much less important. It was a good weekend for the Kettles with the Baggies clinching promotion from the Pepsi-Cola League to the real football world. See you next season, albeit briefly if West Brom’s record is anything to go by.

Dinner in the Marine that night was a great occasion. Nerys was in an extraordinarily generous mood with the food (nothing to do with her sister Magdalene being home with Bruce, I am sure) and the atmosphere was terrific. It was followed with a very good sing-song that was most enjoyable despite the lack of Mike Purslove’s rhythm section this year. Derrick’s thoughtful provision of song books did indicate to me a possible onset of Alzheimer’s in some quarters, but for many of us the words of most of those songs are indelibly burned into our memories. It was not a particularly late night for most by older standards, but for many of us quite late enough - especially after Jim’s rendition of “The Fields of Athenry”, morbid enough even from a good singer.

Sunday morning was warm, bright and beautiful again. The view from the bedroom window of the Marine and the sound of the sea lapping was more Antigua than Aber. Better even. We met and strolled to the end of the Prom to kick the bar. Bet they don’t do that in Antigua. Some drifted off then but most were reluctant to break the magic spell and there followed more coffees and teas sitting on the prom opposite what was the once the scene of many a good night, the former King’s Hall. Finally we had to drag ourselves away home from what had been a great weekend. Some experienced hands said the best. Jeanette and I are relative newcomers, only coming since the ban on Phoenix players was officially lifted. Now, of course, we have more Phoenix people with Pete and Kathy Strydom too.

A curious fact. Nearly every one of the group met their spouses in Aber. One of the exceptions is Jeanette .And yet she loves the weekend and really looks forward to it. She feels at home amongst a great group of people who make her feel so comfortable there. She wonders how I ever got to have such a nice group of friends. Funny how age mellows people.

We look forward to the 19^th Reunion in 2011. But a Health Warning to all the men (as if you don’t get enough of those already). Bob Culley was quite seriously talking about one final football game for the 20^th. Better start thinking of excuses now.

With thanks to Derrick for getting in touch with me 5 years ago or so – it took him a long time to forgive for me for being his flat mate. Thanks to the Passmores and the Kettles and anyone else involved in the organisation. It is a really, really sociable, fun and enjoyable weekend.

des drumm

Attendees (in no particular order):

Jim and Beryl Kettle; you need to get the hips done in time for the Premiership - they might need you

Derrick and Mildred Spragg; still not retired, so a definite for Bob’s team

Ken and Ann Passmore; organiser supreme, just don’t follow him anywhere

John and Shirley Ansell; good to see them back after missing last year

Bruce and Magdalene Roughton; Magdalene had come more for Nerys’ daughter’s wedding than to see us - but great to have her at dinner anyway

Howard and Sian Phillips; stalwarts of the Reunion weekend and the walking weekend - despite Howard’s hips!

Bob and Gaynor Culley; thanks for the onion tree, now planted - and I am in training for the 20^th, honest.

Pete and Eifiona Carpenter; at the match, but we missed Pete’s snazzy jacket at the dinner

Mike and Shan Pickard; facing into retirement, but there is always a job as a male model for mountain walking catalogues

Pete and Kathy Strydom; the “hiraeth” has got to them - they are searching for a house back in Wales, preferably on my route through so I can get a bed

Mike and Lindy Purslove with Carol Parry; Carol ‘s Admissions Office photograph of Derrick was a revelation - was he really so young?

Huw and Ellen Evans; local knowledge was of no benefit whatsoever to Huw against Bruce’s mighty handicap, but Ellen’s Sweep win compensated

Des and Jeanette Drumm; didn’t travel as far as Bruce, but a more expensive bit of sea to cross.

April 9-11 2010

See you next year.