Are the Brits apathetic?

By way of the FriendsReunited site, a few of us former pupils of West Bromwich Grammar School met up last Autumn for the first time in thirty-one years.

We all looked exactly the same - minus a few heads of hair, naturally. One guy even recognised me in the car park, in the dark, from the way I walked!

Over a few beers, we had a great time telling un-told tales of yesteryear and generally dishing the dirt on all our old mates, including ourselves!

So, somebody says casually, it's the school's centenary next year, how about a re-union? In hindsight, I don't think we really appreciated what we were letting ourselves in for.

We had a lot of interest, from all over the world, and amazingly our (legal) limit of 610 attendess began to look decidedly flaky. However, we knew that the crunch would come when we sent out the invitations asking people to actually pay money for their tickets...

To date, four weeks later, we have over 500 (FIVE HUNDRED) confirmed attendees and some £10,000 pounds sterling in the bank. And it's still rolling in.

It's going to be the biggest re-union party ever and is generating a lot of enthusiasm. The people at West Browich Albion Football ground, where the main evening event will be held, are over the moon and pulling out all the stops. I printed off the tickets last week, four to an A4 page, and my local printer wouldn't take any money for guilloting them.

People are coming from all over the world (Bermuda, Canada, North and South America, Australia, Europe - you name it) and the local hotels have all given us special rates. One guy reckons he'll be in New York that weekend filming for the BBC and he is checking out the Concorde schedules to see if he can make it...we sent him a free ticket (to the event, that is, not Concorde!). Some people have other commitments, but have sent us a donation anyway.

My advice is that if you want a drink on July 20, don't come to West Brom - there won't be any left.

To say we (the eight organisers) are stunned is the understatement of all time.

Pete J(ennings)

PS. And given some of the anonymous crap we've seen recently on the 'Cat, I'm going to change my cookie to include my full name from now on.