Ten years ago, I left Birkdale High School with eight GCSEs, and a hatred weariness of the British formal education system. Of the 150 or so pupils in my year, I’ve kept in touch with a very small number.

Dan is still, as he was then, a very close friend. We lived together for a while until I relocated for $JOB[-1], and both work in IT.

Martin, while we lost touch for a while during his university years, is a very close friend, and I’m delighted that we’ve managed to keep in touch so well since he emigrated to Thailand to become something of an entrepeneur in 2001.

Mike and I lost touch for years, but now correspond regularly, and I caught up with him a while ago in London, where he works as a solicitor.

Tomorrow, all four of us will be together for the first time in years: although we all went on to the same college, I left fairly quickly (which is another story entirely), and the others went their separate ways, taking very different classes and going on to different universities.

I’m looking forward to reminiscing about “the happiest days of our lives” (what an enormous lie that was), and as I’m the host, trying to suggest even vaguely interesting things to do in Milton Keynes…