In September 1972, a group of twelve 16 & 17yr old 'boys' met for the first time on their initial day working for the General Post Office as Trainee Technician Apprentice engineers (TTA's).
In 2022, it was 50 years since they had met so Robert and Francis ('scolly') decided to try to arrange a reunion of as many of those that could be traced.
Between them, they contacted:
- Tim Jones
- Dave Lee
- Paul Sibley
- Dave Welch
In addition, Dave Welch contacted Tom O'Carrol and Paul Sibley contacted Paul Chaventre which, including Robert & Scolly, made 8 of the original 12.
We tried unsuccessfully to contact the remaining 4:
- Andre Earle ('Smiler') - last known working for Reuters
- Jim Morris ('biggles') - last known to be serving in the Royal Air Force
- Grant Wilbur ('Thor') - once contacted via Facebook but since lost contact
- Steve Wren - not initially part of the original group but joined a few weeks after we started and was last thought to be a DJ in the USA
- Kevin McCarthy - left within the first couple of years and not heard from since then.
On Thursday,17th November 2022, they all met in the Masque Haunt pub on the corner of Old street and Bunhill Row. The location was significant as their first day had been just around the corner in Featherstone street on that Monday in 1972 and their time at college had been at the City of London College on the corner of Bunhill Row and Chiswell street which is sadly now demolished and replaced by the 'Bayes Business School' (& not associated with Maths teacher, Mike Bayes - 'Stop festering, Sibley!') )
There were plenty of stories to be told and events such as:
- Getting stuck in the lift at Roamer House (after somebody started jumping up & down!)
- Dunking biscuits in tea and throwing them up to stick on the ceiling of the small mess area on the 4th floor of Featherstone street and seeing how long it took for them to fall off.. One never did and was rumoured to have been painted over eventually!)
Here are some pictures from the reunion:
And these pictures are from 'Scolly'
