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It's a small world
May. 18th, 2011 12:46 pm Got an e-mail from my brother last night. He was at a football game recently - he's a keen Newcastle United fan and goes to all their games despite living in London. He was in the bar before the game and two women were sitting next to him. He overheard the name "Aycliffe" in their conversation, and we grew up in Newton Aycliffe. He got drawn into their conversation and he asked about Aycliffe. Turned out one of them lived in the same street as we did. He said our address used to be 3 Mellanby Crescent. "She then said but the Dormer's lived at 3, you're not Paul I went to Vane Road with him."
Vane Road was the primary school I attended from 1958-64, so I left about 50 years ago. I can remember almost nothing about my classmates, especially not the girls. Primary school friendships seem to split by gender. (Actually, I do remember one girl, Della, who was the daughter of our doctor and the school swat.)
So how did this woman remember me after all that time. I hope it's because of a slightly unusual surname or that I was the only London accent in a class full of northerners, and not because of some disgusting habit I had in class. (Actually, the matter of accents brings back another memory, of a girl asking me to say the northern dialect word "clarty" meaning dirty or muddy. My using the long southern 'a' vowel caused those surrounding me to roll about in laughter.)
Vane Road was the primary school I attended from 1958-64, so I left about 50 years ago. I can remember almost nothing about my classmates, especially not the girls. Primary school friendships seem to split by gender. (Actually, I do remember one girl, Della, who was the daughter of our doctor and the school swat.)
So how did this woman remember me after all that time. I hope it's because of a slightly unusual surname or that I was the only London accent in a class full of northerners, and not because of some disgusting habit I had in class. (Actually, the matter of accents brings back another memory, of a girl asking me to say the northern dialect word "clarty" meaning dirty or muddy. My using the long southern 'a' vowel caused those surrounding me to roll about in laughter.)
