Where are they now?

Thank you so much lovely Gransnetters for your kind responses I really appreciate them.

My son said recently that my 3 year old grandson 'wears his heart on his sleeve' I thought I know where he gets tha from!

I agree with*jcdoh*, Nankate. There could be a simple explanation.
It's also quite possible your friend didn't get the email with the pictures.
Hotmail is particularly bad at rejecting emails with attachments.
I sent one with a photo attached to a friend while we were in the States.
She didn't reply and I was worried about her as she is on her own. I resorted to emailing a mutual friend to ask her to find out if our friend was ok.
She was, but had never received the email.

nankate, sad ..... yes but you had 50 yrs of friendship, which you both obviously enjoyed !!

I would say don't write it as off/gone; but as an oversight, through illness or loss;

I have relatives too far to visit- who I write to between 2/3 times a year and those that get xmas cards with the year past news, but have noted when illness strikes they find it difficult to communicate, and losing someone close can cause months of silence.

just try to keep an open mind--in hope.

Ohhhh, NanKate, my heart goes out to you - big hugs! You sound a lovely, kind and caring person and you did what a friend does - you reached out. You must feel totally bewildered at her strange response. However, could it be that she is just so immersed in helping her daughter that she isn't able to respond at the moment? Just playing devil's advocate really, though I know I'd feel the same in your shoes.
How long is it since you replied to her? If it's several months then maybe it's time to draw a line underneath it, accept that you feel hurt and rejected but know that you did your best and for whatever reason, she isn't able to continue the friendship right now. But it's equally possible that you might hear from her again out of the blue! You could try not sending the usual letter at Christmas, as you say, and see whether she responds, but sometimes it's just better to wave goodbye and to move on.

Greenfinch. I know what you mean. About 8 years ago I was contacted by an old friend via Friends Reunited. She was part of a group of good friends I had at school. We emailed a couple of times and she said that she kept in touch with another of our friends from school and would I like to meet up with the two of them. I politely refused for the same reasons as you mention above. I assumed they would be slimmer, more glamorous, with better houses etc. I was probably wrong and it was nice to hear from her but sometimes the past is best left in the past.

There is to be a 50 year re-union of my year at secondary school next month and I am so pleased I have a prior engagement which I am unable to get out of. I don't think I would go anyway as I'm sure they will all be slim, elegant ,young-looking and full of what they have achieved. I am probably wrong but that is my perception.
On the other hand, my close friends are colleagues from my first job. We all started teaching within a few years of each other and gradually left to have our children starting with me. As others left we began to meet monthly in each other's houses for about 6-7years until there were 7 or 8 Mums and 13 or 14 children. I myself had 3 by then.It lasted until slowly and one-by-one we drifted back to various teaching or other jobs .We mainly lost sight of each other over the following years apart from the Christmas card with the odd scribbled "we must meet up" message As we all began to retire we decided to make this a reality and once again we meet monthly in one of our homes .Obviously the number has dwindled because some have left the area but at present there are 4 of us with 9 grandchildren between us. We share our family problems and there is much laughter as we look back over the past and our shared experiences.
It seems like the wheel has turned full circle.

Kate Maybe something has happened in her life. I haven't looked on Friends Reunited for years. Then just last night (strangely as I had been reading this thread yesterday) I had a message via them from an old school friend who I last saw in 1970. I absolutely loved this girl. I have often wondered what had happened to her over the years. I replied to her email and she replied back to me. I am now going to watch this space.

I have a rather sad story to recount. In the 60s I was very friendly with a girl I met at secretarial college. I was bridesmaid at her first wedding.

Over the years we went our separate ways but kept in touch by our annual Xmas letter to each other.

Xmas 2013 I didn't hear from her and I was worried she was ill or worse, so I wrote to her asking if she was ok and suggested she send me her email address so that we could exchange family photos and news.

I heard nothing for about 6 weeks then suddenly I got an email ping into my inbox. I was thrilled to see it was from her.

She said she was surprised that I had been concerned about her, that she had just become a grandmother and was helping her daughter who was struggling. I wrote back thrilled to hear from her and gave her a quick update, then about 3 weeks later I sent a couple of family photos and said I would love to see a photo of her new grandson.

I have heard nothing since that first email. I feel hurt and rejected and have come to the decision to cease sending my usual letter at Xmas as I obviously mean nothing to her.

It's taken me about 50 years to realise who I thought was a good friend is nothing of the sort. What a fool I feel.

GillT57 I went to Woodford County High, you?

Pittcity, what school did you go to?

I still regularly meet up with my friend who lived round the corner from me when we were 3, and then we attended the same schools. So 62 years. We sometimes go to our Grammar school reunions and always recognise the women, but agree with Souta, the men have really changed!

Still in touch with a friend I made at school 60 years ago when we were 5. She is living abroad now so just do e mails.

I contacted 3 old friends from school on friendsreunitied a few years ago. All were pretty unfriendly and that puzzled me. Sad really.

No never wondered, did keep in contact with one on and off with one up until a few yrs ago...but it seems to have faded.I think if I met up with old school friends, we would have nothing in common after so many yrs.they would be like strangers.

I am still best friends with someone I met in junior school when I was 9 I am now nearly 61. We are as close as sisters ( she was an only child and my brother is 7 years younger than me and we rarely meet) We have always managed to live close to each other even though we have both moved house several times and there is nothing we don't know about each other and nothing we wouldn't do for each other. I love her like she was my real sister.

Everyone else I went to school with I have no idea where they are and have no interest in finding out. I have othe close friends I've kept in touch with from college and different work venues but I hated school and walked out at 16 without a backward glance.

I'm afraid my stories on this subject are rather sad.
It all happened in the same year, 2002.
First, my Mum was in hospital after a stroke, and in the next bed was someone from my class at school, also had a stroke .
Soon after that the husbands of 3 of my "best friends" from different stages of my life suddenly died. I keep in contact with all 3 from time to time.
Recently joined a "Roots" website and have made contact with a few people of my age from my hometown.
Somehow I feel more nostalgia for the place than the people, still often visit and see the old childhood haunts.

I'm still good friends with 3 friends who I have known since our first day at grammar school. For a long time it was just Christmas cards, but since the DCs have gone we've had a lot more time for socialising.
We're off for two nights in the Yorkshire Dales in a fortnight, I'm really looking forward to it and shall be what grannyknot calls carefree for those 3 days

My best friend and I met on our first day at primary school, we sat next to each other and have been friends ever since, (60 years ago!!) we have seen each other through good times and not so good times, and our husbands get on well too!

Bimbadeen I think you are first cousins once removed.
What a lovely thing for your DH and his mother.

I am still in contact with one of my grammar school friends , we were in the same class year 2 of the school 1948-9 , lost touch when I went to live in South Africa for 10 years but through a contact on Genes Re United in New Zealand , who turned out to be my friends cousin, unknown to either of us Pam and I re established contact with one another, no meet ups just a couple of letters a year .

I did make contact through Friends Re United with a woman , we both attended the same primary school first or second year 1940-41 , neither remembered each other but did know of the names of two or three of our teachers , we didn't pursue matters.

And on Ancestry Family Tree I have just made contact with a man, only living a short distance from me (30miles) whose grandmother was my aunt, not certain what our relationship is, second cousins maybe ? We have met up and such a nice man so pleased to have found some family, a photograph of his mother shows a strong resemblance to my aunts daughter.

AND we made contact with my husbands mother , she was 92 and he was nearly 60 , had to be so very careful not to upset her or cause any problems for her but he now has a photograph of him and his mum together . He was fostered at six weeks old and then formally adopted aged 7. and had had no contact with his birth mother since aged 7.
We took her out to lunch at her favourite pub and she and he sat there looking at me with the same eyes , quite an uncanny experience.

Yesterday I saw at a distance a lady who used to attend our mother and toddler group. She came with another girl and they seemed close friends. The other lady died last year and I fully expected to see her friend at the funeral but she was not there. I was torn whether to go and speak to her as perhaps she did not know? I was on the toddler group committee and the ladies I met there are still close friends. We still have a Christmas night out and it raises a few eyebrows when we say we are from a mother and toddler group!

One friend complained bitterly that two others of our old group attend the same gym, but barely acknowledge her. I was quite horrified. However, I offered to pop in to see her on my way to visit my mother - and she never replied to the email!

Like janer I had a few people who replied for a short time but they seemed to want to know any news I had about other old friends I had kept in touch with and as soon as they did they "were off". When I commented on this to another friend he said that was very common.Picking your brains he called it.

Yes I did this a few years ago and we met up in Bristol but contacts have not lasted.

There is a morbid curiosity is there not, in what has become of our childhood friends? I went to a school reunion once and was quite let down. The "boys" had morphed into balding men with paunches for the most part - how could yI have yearned for any of them at the end of term disco? while the women had mostly fared better. I was curious to see 2 girls (twins) who had bullied me unmercifully making my life a misery and yet when we met the resentment just drained away. I realised that their behaviour was little more than tomboyish rough and tumble and I had been one of 2 quiet and bookish daughters - and a wimp!! I am not sorry I went but I won't go to another one.

My old school has a Facebook page, but none of them seem to be from the time I was there, they are all younger than me.

I have met up with my year at reunions, but not for a while now.