50 years – passed in the blink of an eye – and here we are all together again! Well not quite all, some of my old medical school contemporaries didn’t make it.   The Royal Free School of Medicine for Women (and the odd privileged man) has a far-reaching diaspora encompassing the whole globe, not to mention the afterlife. 

We remembered with affection our fallen comrades and exchanged news of the beautiful ones (those with perfect teeth and not a hint of a wrinkle) who still work in the USA, and those trapped by new lives, love and family in the Antipodes.  We welcomed back the returners, those who have spent a career in the sunshine and understand politics and poverty in a way that we never will.

Meeting people that you once knew well after a gap of 50 years is a daunting experience – you can’t take you eyes off them – trying to fit the image in your memory over the features that confront you.  Why has everyone shrunk? Perhaps the younger generations are not just getting bigger and bigger – perhaps it’s not just old girls that get osteoporosis. 

It is marvellous to realise how superficial I was when I was young, and I am sure I was not alone. How wrong we can be about how people will turn out.  Medicine changes people as does the illness and trauma we survive.  The shy become confident, the brash are moderated — they were perhaps always kind. Those intimidating cool dudes warm a little and the differences that we felt singled us out, and were never mentioned then, are now freely admitted and laughed about…  “I’d never have guessed that about you!”

We had a wonderful meal together and talked until our heads buzzed in the heart and heat of London, in the Athenaeum, a club selective for achievement, not background.  A suitable venue, as our chairman reminded us, to re-unite students selected by the doyennes of the Royal Free.  Selected by different criteria from other medical schools – perhaps primarily for vocation and the suspicion of as yet unfulfilled potential.  We owe them a debt of gratitude.