These eight women became schoolfriends in Cwmbran around 76 years ago – and they still get together every month for a catch‑up.
The group, all in their 80s, first met at St Dial’s School in Old Cwmbran, which was demolished in the early 1980s.
They had lunch and a chat today at Greenmeadow Golf Club, where they’ve been meeting regularly for around ten years – though their monthly meet‑ups actually began around thirty years ago. Some months, up to 12 of them may attend but it does fluctuate with one member joking that they arrange the dates around “doctor’s appointments and hospital visits.”
Anne Evans said: “It’s just nice meeting all your schoolfriends. I can’t believe you can get a group with say ten of us, and we all went to St Dials Infants School and we still meet up with one another.
“We just talk and talk, about anything. You say somebody’s name and all of a sudden it’s ‘oh yeah, I remember who that is,’ and then sort of go back a bit further.
“We go from one thing to another. Sometimes somebody will bring a photo and it’s ‘oh, who’s on there.’
“We just seem to talk about anything. We’ve been going for a long time.”
‘A huge amount of history’
Carole Brangham said: “It can be repetitive because our memories obviously are the same but different – it never stops us talking.
“We share a huge amount of history between us and even though I moved out of Cwmbran 43 years ago, my roots are still there, my memories are still there.
“I just consider myself extremely lucky that I’ve got this gang of ladies, that we can share such a lot. We never go away from one of these meetings without arranging another one the next month.
“We do it once a month now, as we say we have it between doctor’s appointments and hospital visits, and let’s keep doing it all the time because our group is going to diminish.
“We’ll just keep going as long as the Greenmeadow [Golf Club] will put up with us.
“Every now and again, someone will come in with some old photographs that they’ve found and we go through them, ‘well, who’s that, who’s that.’
“It is very good, I wouldn’t be without it. Several of us have moved away, but we come back to Cwmbran.”
‘Reminiscing’
Margaret Oelmann said: “It’s just fun, isn’t it, reminiscing. As you get older, it’s harder to form new relationships, and the fact that we go back so long just makes such a difference.
“It’s having those links. When I was 18, I went away to train in college, and then I worked abroad and taught abroad for a long time. I married into a forces family so we moved around a lot
“Twenty-three years ago ,I came back to Cwmbran and just picked up, people remembered my sister, my mother. You know what it’s like, it’s that connection.
“We’re all interested in each other’s lives now and the grandchildren, and the great-grandchildren. We’ve lived through each of our family’s histories which is the great thing.
“We circulate photos and we circulate news and we turn up at the funerals and come here for the teas. But it’s the friendship, and that is just amazing.
“People can’t believe it…76 years on.
“In fact, we were sitting at the corner table. Some people asked the waitress, ‘what’s the connection there?’ and she said, ‘oh, they’ve been friends for over 70 years.’
“‘Wow! ‘ You know, that’s the reaction.”