On a glorious early Autumn afternoon in September, more than 30 “girls” came back to the School for drinks and a tour of the buildings and grounds.  We were all from the year group that had joined the Upper Thirds (as Year 7 was then called) in 1983.  

We met in The Curve - a bright, modern room that now adjoins the Lady’s Close building.    It was striking how many new buildings have appeared since our time at the School, though they have been squeezed in quite cleverly - so the site somehow didn’t seem any more built-up than in the 1980s.  It was warm and sunny so we were able to enjoy the gardens too - which have definitely been spruced up since our time.  

Several people brought along photos from our schooldays to show one another.  I’m sure today’s Watford Girls - no doubt documenting their lives with their camera phones every day - would be struck by how few images exist of our time at the School in the 1980s.  But the few dozen snaps that we looked at - school trips to Mainz, in costume for The Royal Hunt of the Sun performance, messing about in form rooms - were all wonderful to see.  The perms...!  There were some particularly precious pictures of some of the friends from our year group who left us tragically young.   

The Facilities Manager very kindly showed us around the whole site - which sparked many, many memories.  It was the smells that did it for me - instantly transporting me back to exams in the school hall; getting changed for hockey; double Economics on a Monday morning. 

There were a few differences.  Lockers, which started to appear in our later years at the School, now line every corridor (I guess the lidded desks where we used to keep our belongings are long gone).  The beautiful parquet floors in the main building seem much more polished than I remembered them.  Judging by the displays on the boards, everyone seems to be much better at Art than they were in our day.  One of the old music rooms is now a space where anyone who is feeling overwhelmed can retreat for some quiet time alone.  But - overall - it felt that very little had changed.  

After a couple of hours at the School, it was time to go.  But 40 years is a lot to catch up on and we weren’t done with talking.  By some miracle, the Florist restaurant on the High Street said that, yes, they could accommodate thirty of us at 15 minutes notice, so the catching-up and reminiscences were able to continue...