We had a reunion lunch of 24 ex Hill School pupils, 4 members of the staff, 1 father of a deceased pupil and 11 spouses on the 24th March 2001 at the Karibu Bush Pub at Botha's Hill. Despite some people swearing they would know nobody or could not remember much about their early schooldays, this certainly was not in evidence. From the moment people arrived to hear the song West of Zanzibar to the time the first lot departed after a group photo session, it appeared that everyone enjoyed themselves.
While the majority of people came from either the Durban area, the Natal south coast, Pietermaritzburg and the Midlands, we did have John Glover and his wife Frankie together with his sister Alida from Jo'burg, and Aiden Doyle from Standerton.
A big surprise a few weeks previously had been Dave Lichtenstein's decision to fly over from Sydney for the event. This was followed sometime later by Betty Leech's (nee Stinchcombe) decision to fly down from Bulawayo. Betty had been his very first school teacher. A big bonus for Dave as June Parker, his last teacher at the Hill School, would also be at the Reunion.
It was a lot of fun meeting up with everyone and we felt that we had shared our school days with a great bunch of people! I personally enjoyed putting faces to people I had been in contact with either telephonically or by e-mail.
Our reunion in South Africa of 40 has been the largest Hill School one to date. Even Sydney only managed 20 people, including spouses. It sounds like a challenge to the one being held in Shrivenham, England on the 24th June 2001!