REUNITED

 by Richard Banks

To John Phillips  <philwell@its.com>

From Trevor Fellows  <Trevfell@global.co.uk>

      Dear John - saw your name on the School pals Reunited site last night. What a surprise!!! Where have you been hiding since we left Hepton High? A few of the guys thought you had moved to Leicester but no-one knew for sure. Your site entry says you’re now working in London; did you move there after Leicester or is Leicester a figment of someone’s imagination?

      I’m still in Hepton, worse luck! The old town doesn’t get any better I can tell you, but at least I now have a half-decent job with PKS Finance. Not before time, I might add. After a string of dead-end jobs, I was going nowhere fast. Finally realised that three GCSEs were never going to get me an executive position, so when PKS started recruiting here I ‘updated’ my CV by adding in two A levels and a fake reference I concocted on the computer. Put on the old charm at the interview and sailed through. Makes you realise what an unnecessary exertion our school days were.

      Still, there were some good laughs. Remember that statue of the school founder, over the entrance, which you dressed up in that kid’s uniform? How you ever climbed up there and down without breaking your neck I’ll never know. Old Frosty, our ‘esteemed’ headmaster, nearly went ballistic next morning at assembly. I’m sure he knew it was us, but he couldn’t prove it, of course. I don’t suppose he would have been too chuffed had he known about the fags and beer we consumed behind the sports pavilion at lunchtimes. What a struggle it was to stay awake in the afternoons.

      Have any of the old guard been in touch? Be great to know how Ricky and Spike are getting on. Email soon and bring me up to date.

 

      Cheers Trev

 

To Trevor Fellows   <Trevfell@global.co.uk>

From John Phillips   <philwell@its.com>     

      I refer to your email received yesterday.

      My recollections are somewhat different from your own. Unsurprising really as I am not the John Phillips you remember. I am the other John Phillips, but then you probably never knew my name. I was one of the boys in the lower school from whom you and your gang regularly extorted money. No wonder you always had plenty of ready cash to spend on cigarettes and beer. At least when you were boozing behind the sports pavilion you weren’t bothering us. Most of us kept our heads down and came through more or less unscathed, others were less fortunate. Remember Roger Jones whose cap and blazer were used to bedeck the founder’s statue? - a schoolboy prank which might have been amusing had it not been for the damage to the school roof. Poor Roger was expelled for that escapade, implicated by the label in his cap which bore his name. None of the other schools nearby would take him - well no-one wants a trouble maker, do they? - and the family ended up moving away to Newheath. Even less fortunate was Andrew Tully. He was another one of your victims. Porky, I think you called him. Andrew never completed his school days, he overdosed on his mother’s sleeping tablets. No doubt you read about it at the time in the local paper. No doubt it never entered your head that you were to blame. Even if you had made the connection, would you have cared?

      I think it goes without saying that I know nothing about the whereabouts of Ricky, Spike and the others. One of the advantages of living and working in London is that I am never likely to meet them again.

      Curiously, our school days are not the only thing we have in common. Like you, I am an employee of PKS. For several months now, I have been working at head office as Assistant Director of Personnel. The setting-up of our Hepton office, a year ago, was handled by my predecessor - obviously not very well. Clearly, there are issues concerning your employment with the company which fall within the disciplinary section of the Staff Manual. In particular, I would draw your attention to para 32(b) of Section 2 which states that ‘any contract or offer of employment will be considered null and void if entered into on the basis of an application for employment found to contain untrue or misleading information’.

      In the circumstances, you may wish to avoid embarrassment by resigning your position within PKS before your, otherwise, inevitable dismissal.

 

Cheers John.

 

Copyright Richard Banks