Where are they now?

Yes Aka you are not on your own in that.I tried a few years ago to make contact through Friends Re united,some general queries and some specific,with very limited success. I didn't continue for long, having the not un-natural thought that some may have died.

My year at secondary school has a Facebook group, but only a fraction of the year has found it. I have also found a few from primary school on Facebook. They are now spread all over the world. Very few have stayed in the original area -Redbridge, Essex. I'd love to know if any are on GN.

I had a card at Christmas from someone I had been at college with 50 years ago.

I found that really , really weird, didn't do anything for me at all.

I ignored it !!

:-(

Am still in touch with quite a number of old school friends from primary and secondary school. Went back for a reunion when we were all about 40 and was amazed that we all recognised each other even after all those years.

I still have close friends from college and from every job I had along the way, plus another lovely friend who I met in Farnborough Hospital in Kent when we shared a room after delivering our first babies 32 years ago. They have visited us in Malta and we have stayed with them in the UK.

Just wish my friends lived closer, but we all know we can count on each other and would help each other out in a heartbeat.

I did find some a couple of years ago, through FR. One drove all the way up here to see me, and now we communicate on FB. The others started out as a flurry of emails, which gradually petered out, but we send xmas cards now and it's good to know that they are still there. Only one has died that I know of, in a car crash.

DD found her cousin whom she'd never met on FB. DH and his sister fell out before DD was born.
I found a pen friend that I wrote to for 5 yrs before I knew DH. I was persuaded to stop writing to him. DH obviously no longer thinks he's a threat. As he no longer objects to us having contact.
I didn't have friends at school

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

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.

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

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!

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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!

Pittcity, what school did you go to?

GillT57 I went to Woodford County High, you?

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.