This time a couple of weeks ago I was at our 25 year school reunion. It was, to say the least, surreal. It was also a learning experience, and one that took me through a range of emotions – not just the nostalgia you might expect, but also sadness and guilt – and anxiety borne of the realisation that I had forgotten so much and so many people (thank god for the name badges).

Our reunion came about when an old school friend posted some school photos on Facebook. It led to nostalgic comments, and then the setting up of a group to organise a reunion – and ultimately a big hunt online and through friends of friends and people’s mums to find the 240 odd kids who had been in our school year. In the end about a hundred came, although we had found many more who were unable to attend.

I had a fantastic and slightly sozzled night, and had sufficient good sense to avoid the after party on the beach (sense I definitely did not have when I was fourteen and fond of malibu and coke. Some people’s rites of passage involve pigs, for others its late night beach parties and unpleasant alcoholic drinks you can’t handle).

But for me, there was more to it than that.

Firstly, on the night there were at least 3 people there who had done the “can I just ask you a quick question” at a time of divorce or relationship breakdown (thankfully, all successfully through the other side). Nice to see you guys, glad it came good in the end.

Secondly, a very surprising selection of people tell me they read Pink Tape (hi guys).

Thirdly, I am only slightly paranoid that none of my ex boyfriends came….

Fourthly, there were a good few (but not all) of the outsiders in our year who found the strength to come. The painfully shy, the geeky, the oddballs – we’d have just called them weirdos or worse back then. The bad kids, the jokers and the bullies were all represented too – and of course the whole thing was organised by the popular girls (thank you ladies). It was strangely the same and yet totally different.

The fact that we had grown up and many of us had kids of our own, some teenagers like we were back then, was a great leveller. We all now understand how vulnerable, naive, unkind we all were (well, most of us understand it). There was a concerted effort on the Facebook group to encourage and support those with nerves, anxiety or mental health problems to come – some did and some did not feel able. Me and my mates were nervous about going. Like many others, we arranged to meet up before and arrive in a group. It wasn’t easy for anyone except the most thick skinned. I will never again tie myself in knots at having to step into those awful “networking opportunities” that are forced on me at the bar, panicking and dry mouthed about what small talk to make. This must have been much worse for those people who were bullied and marginalised at school, and I will think of them braving it next time I am about to set foot in the Court of Appeal or some conference room full of unknown faces. It will stay with me just how many of my peers acknowledged in our private Facebook group how traumatic school was for them, and how difficult coming back would be. And how many of the kids I put in the “mean” pigeonhole back then posted comments on Facebook about the difficulties in their home life as kids that I only now understand – as someone who now sees struggling families every day it’s hard to think about and understand how I was so blind to all of this at the time.

I sailed through school, pretty able academically, with a stable family life (thanks mum and dad). I didn’t see it. I didn’t understand it. What I saw was kids teasing me for being rich or brainy (I wasn’t either but it’s a question of perspective) not kids whose lives were different to mine. Poor me I thought (stupid girl).

I’m not stupid now. I know all teenagers are egocentric and just don’t see anyone else’s perspective. But it doesn’t make me feel any less guilty or embarrassed. I’m pretty sure I was rarely actively unkind at school, but I am also pretty sure I was insensitive and failed to defend those who needed it. I wish that wasn’t so.

There were one or two “Big I Ams” whose attitude was still just like the 14 year old boy I remember (and I don’t think the chat up lines had evolved much either), but overall I’m really proud that our year group made a genuine and sustained effort to right some of the wrongs and be supportive of those who found it difficult. Of course it doesn’t undo the lasting effects of a traumatic or chronically awful school experience, but it’s still important – and not just in terms of making people like me feel better (I hope). I think for a few people in “recovery” it was a really important milestone. And on that night I was able to spend time talking to people I never really spoke to at school. I’m sorry if I talked rubbish.

The other, very striking and important observation is this: we may have more lumpy bits, droopy bits, grey hairs and bald spots – but by god we dress better! And we definitely use less hairspray…

And no, I’m not gonna tell you which ones are me! But I did watch too much Breakfast Club.

Class of 1990 : you are ace! Every one of you. Although Tennyson was the best house, natch…. xxxx