My pals and I were young and carefree when our photo was taken on holiday. More than 50 years later, I had an idea. By Sue Morris, 70
Sitting down at a desk on my first day at secondary school, I was relieved to see a familiar face.
My pal Carol and I had been at primary school together, and we soon made friends with another two girls, Marion and Mary.
‘Fancy joining the youth club?’ I asked.
‘Go on, then,’ they said.
From then on, the four
of us were inseparable, and when we left school at 16, our friendship continued.
I went to work in a carpet factory, Carol and Marion began training as nursery nurses, and Mary worked for the council near our homes in Halifax, West Yorkshire.
We went on our first holiday without parents together, heading to Cleethorpes in Lincolnshire.
And the following year, when we were 17, we fancied somewhere different.
‘What about Torquay?’ I suggested.
The Devon resort was known as the English Riviera and it sounded right up our street.
Three heads nodded eagerly in agreement, so we booked into a caravan site
for a week.
It was 1972, and we were wide-eyed with amazement
as we took
in Torquay’s glittering coastline and palm trees.
‘It’s so exotic,’ I said. ‘It’s like not being in England.’
Later, we put
on our swimming costumes and strolled down to the shore, and soon we were squealing as we splashed each other and ran in and out of the waves.
‘The water is so blue,’ Carol said, grinning. ‘And so warm!’
'How do you fancy re-creating that?'
We all laughed. We were used to shivering in the sea on the coast in Yorkshire.
That evening, we wandered along the seafront, dived into a pub we liked the look of and ordered a round of cider.
Then we raised our glasses and said, ‘To us!’
After we’d been there for
a few days, we were on the prom one afternoon when a bloke with a camera jumped out in front of us.
We’d seen him taking photos of other holidaymakers.
‘Come on girls, want a photo?’ he asked.
‘Yes, please,’
I replied.
The four of
us, wearing miniskirts, linked arms and beamed happily into the camera.
Later, we all got copies of the photo and, back home,
I carefully placed mine into
an album.
In the years that followed, my albums were filled with lovely photos of us together as we celebrated milestones in our lives.
We were bridesmaids at each other’s weddings, although I had to miss Marion’s because I was heavily pregnant.
I had two children, Carol had one, Marion had two and so did Mary.
As we became mums, more of our time was taken up with our families, but we vowed we’d never lose touch.
Three of us – me, Marion and Mary – continued to live in Halifax, but Carol moved to Calderdale and spent some time
in Spain. But she still visited regularly.
As retirement
neared, and our kids began to start their own families, we had more time to concentrate on ourselves.
We celebrated our 60th birthdays in Spain, and as
our 70th birthdays approached, I had an idea.
When we met up for a meal, I placed a photocopy
of a picture on the table.
It was the one taken in Torquay 52 years earlier.
‘Right, girls,’ I said. ‘How do you fancy re-creating that?’
There was a clatter of knives and forks and then, slowly, smiles began to appear.
But when I put forward
my next idea, there was a stunned silence.
‘Wear the same clothes?’ someone said at last. ‘But how?’
Our original outfits had been bought in a shop called Chelsea Girl, but that was back in the 1970s. The store was long gone and we no longer had the originals –
not that they’d have fitted!
So I hit the charity shops
to see what I could dig up.
I found a short blue skirt like the one I’d worn more than half a century earlier, and a similar-looking yellow blouse.
The other girls went on Vinted, and Mary ordered a dress that took two of us to zip her into!
‘It’s a bit tight,’ she admitted, laughing.
This time we booked
into a hotel, and our old schoolfriend Jane came with us to take the picture.
But as we walked along the prom, we were flummoxed.
‘It’s not here!’ I said.
We were looking for a white building with arches that had been the backdrop to the original picture, but it had gone.
Luckily, someone at the hotel was able to help,
and they showed us where the old building had been demolished and replaced with a new hotel, restaurant and bar.
As we took up our positions, people on the prom stopped to watch.
‘That’s it!’ Jane said, snapping away.
I think the new photo is a triumph.
Of course, it shows us looking older and greyer,
but those smiles from half a century ago? They’re plastered all over our faces again.
What a wonderful celebration of our lifelong friendship!