I’ve not blogged for a while… in fact, here we are, gone St. Patrick’s Day, and this is my first blog of ’26.
Unfortunately, this isn’t because I have found a way to hibernate between the beginning of December (or even earlier, depending on the zealotry over Christmas wherever one happens to find oneself) and the start of the 6 Nations, but simply because I seem to have been fighting off one illness or accident induced injury after another.
I’ll spare you the details regarding the illnesses, but having recovered from a chronic Achilles strain, I didn’t even manage to get off the bus in Marbella in early February before picking up another lower limb injury.
It’s a well-known fact that Johnny Spaniard isn’t one for queuing, and a (probably) ill-intended shove in my back by someone in a hurry to leave the bus in Marbella precipitated a fall down the steps which resulted in further serious injury to my already chronically knackered right knee. This is a knee which has defied medical science; my former orthopaedic consultant — whose last operation on my knee was to remove the lining in a procedure called a synovectomy — told me over twenty years ago that I would need a knee replacement within a decade.
Up until a few weeks ago, and my arrival at Marbella, it was still doing everything I wanted it to do, and without undue discomfort or pain. For the first few days following the bus incident, I could hardly walk. Gradually it has settled down, but travelling by car (particularly taxis, which seem to be designed for short people) or plane travel, severely aggravate it. The most annoying thing caused by this particular injury is the restricted range of movement, to the extent that I can no longer cycle. And as I can no longer run, this leaves me with the cross-trainer when using the gym.
Still, things could be worse, couldn’t they?
On the positive side, my chronic sinusitis has cleared up, and copious blood tests, scans and hypochondria-driven consultations with doctors have revealed nothing sinister lurking on the horizon.
So far… happy days.
We’ve just come back from a ten-day trip which began in Birmingham with one of my oldest friends, and moved on to Northern Ireland where we spend a week with my other oldest friends. “Old” serves two purposes here — to designate the length of time our friendship has lasted, and to signify that we are getting on in years.
One of the reasons for this trip was to attend an Old Portoran (OP) luncheon in Belfast last Friday.
Despite leaving Portora Royal School (now sadly re-badged as Enniskillen Royal Grammar) over fifty years ago, the years we spent there were largely happy and extremely formative in the way that nothing subsequent has been. For sure, my “college” days — at Borough Road College — were memorable, but I didn’t make the same attachments, nor bank the same now sepia-tinged memories as I made at school.
I’d only been to one previous OP reunion, and that was in London in the early ‘80s. As it was hardly memorable, I hadn’t bothered with any others. However, as there were would be at least three of us from the same cohort attending together, and a few other who had signed up to attend, we’d decided to go.
The event was held in Malone Rugby Club, which was as basic as the name might suggest. Belfast luncheons are normally held in the Belfast Reform Club — a much more salubrious venue – but on account of the large number of attendees (one hundred and eleven) it was moved to a different venue.
So, what to make of it?
The best thing about attending a school reunion over fifty years after leaving school, is that it makes you realise that you are significantly better off than most other people. It even makes you feel good about yourself.
The moment I entered the rugby club and clocked some of my contemporaries, my aching knee, bad cold, and hungover torpor instantly evaporated.
By the time I was on my third Guinness, I felt borderline sprightly and a couple of decades younger than most of the guys I’d gone to school with.
It helps, of course, when you’re treated to comments, such as “you’ve not aged too badly, have you?” The fact that you can walk to the bar without the aid of at least one stick, and survive two speeches without needing to hobble out for a pee, sets you ahead of many of your contemporaries.
Take the guy seated between me and one of my friends at the dinner table, for example. The last time I saw him, he resembled Javier Bardem in the role of Anton Chigurh in No Country For Old Men. He was a fine rugby player, solidly built and with dark, slightly menacing swarthy good looks. These days he looks like he’s wearing a flotation ring around his waist, his hair has almost gone, the hint of menace he may or may not have exuded is reserved for the bible classes he teaches.
One chap I’d been particularly friendly with had survived brain cancer, and had outlived two wives, the second had died from falling down a flight of stairs. Ahem.
And then there were the saddest of sad stories: we learned that three guys we were close to had died. One fell from a horse, one blew himself up in a mine in South Africa, and one had gradually severed links with friends and family before moving to North Wales and killing himself.
It wasn’t all gloom though. One random guy approached me and said when he was at Gloucester House (the preparatory school) he and his mates used to gather near the fence facing up Portora Hill to listen to the band practice during prep break. He’d found out that I’d been in the band (Big Jake & The Underwater Convention) and wanted to say how much he enjoyed listening to us. That was nice.
“Spence and Grainger! You two were the absolute bane of my life!”
Praise indeed.
But the highlight was undoubtedly meeting David Robertson, our Housemaster. He must be well into his 80s but hasn’t changed much since we last saw him. Lunch was about to be served when we approached and said hello.
He was thrilled to see us: “Spence and Grainger! You two were the absolute bane of my life!”
Praise indeed.
The food was dreadful and we drank too much, but it was great to see a few old faces.
But if I learned anything, it was that an old school reunion is indubitably a country for old men.