After a lovely, saturated fat filled English breakfast, I lazed around my room a bit until I got a text from Adrian that he’d meet me in front of the B&B at noon.
It was weird to see him. The picture in my mind is of the 24 year old I saw last in ‘91, but he’s obviously the 42 year old we’ve all become. The odd thing is, is that when I’m not looking at him and he says something, I still have that 24 year old face in my mind.
Turns out things have been a bit rough for him lately with some serious health issues and the problems with the shop. After talking about what’s been going on in his life, he talked about what’s happened to the people we used to know. He’s a fount of knowledge. He rattled off what had happened to familiar faces, names and a whole lot of people I couldn’t remember at all.
He rattled off teachers. There was Mr. Eberidge, our geography and assistant gym teacher, who had made us write out each misspelled word in a test 1000 times. For Adrian it was “separate”. Not sure what the words were for me but I know it was two. Apparently he was shagging a sixth form girl but it was OK because she was over the age of consent. He later left RGS and recently died at 52 of cancer.
There was Dr. Petchley, history, RIP, Chippy Chambers, woodwork and tech drawing RIP, Miss Richardson, English and Latin. There was Harry Locke, our evil, tooth deprived gym teacher who was apparently engaging in some bedroom gymnastics with Mrs.. Holland the married deputy head mistress. I’m still having trouble picturing that. There was Graham Finch our English teacher and one of my favorite, despite the fact that I still failed English Lit and Language miserably. He left RGS for another school. And there was Dolly Denton, who is apparently still alive! Even back then I was sure she was old enough to have actually experienced most of the history she was teaching.
I was actually surprised at the number of teachers that are still alive 26 years later. They all seemed so old at the time but I guess it was more that we were so young. Even old Poselthwaite, Mr. Stanley’s (headmaster, RIP) henchman and chemistry teacher is still around. And according to Adrian pretty much the same.
Among our fellow students, most have left Ripon and even North Yorkshire. Adrian seemed to feel somewhat abandoned by everyone to a certain degree. The interesting thing is that I would have put Adrian as the one most likely to have ended up travelling the world, doing music or whatever. He always seemed the most cosmopolitan. I guess he was tied down to Ripon by the family business.
As far as I can tell, most of our fellow students seemed to have been a bit of a sorry lot, so many divorces, single parents, job issues. I’m sure it’s no more than any other group of people. Gaz seems to be the only other one still married (17 years) to his first wife.
While visiting the past, we walked through Studley Royal Park and Fountains Abbey. Later, we drove through the Yorkshire Dales. The countryside is just breathtaking with a desolate beauty.
Let’s just say that Adrian drove a bit faster than dad. The speed limit outside of the towns and villages is 60, regardless of how narrow and twisting the road is. And Adrian usually hit the limit and then some.
After dinner at a nice Italian place on Kirkgate with Adrian, I yet again frequented The One Eyed Rat. This time I stopped at two. I tried to leave at one and done but was prevented by Malcolm. This time we were joined by the bar side comedy duo of Phil and Paul. Paul had this craggy Yorkshire face with a permanent grin. According to Malcolm he is a beer guru among other skills. One of those people that seems to have an endless knowledge of trivia. Phil seemed a bit younger and had worked all over the world, but seemed to have spent a lot of time in Africa. He was the straight man of the team, who seemed to start to talk randomly to no one in particular about whatever subject crossed his mind.
And yes, I did actually leave after only two.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment