The Ivy Link Summer Lunch

The Annual Ivy Link Lunch took place at Croydon High School on Saturday 23rd June and as always it was a very happy occasion with almost 100 guests. We received groups from the classes of 1988, 1978, 1968, 1958 and 1948 celebrating notable anniversaries. We were particularly happy to welcome Jennifer Ingham from the Class of 1948, one of our most regular attendees both at alumnae events and school productions. These year groups were greeted by the sight of helium balloons as they entered the dining area in the main hall and Jennifer was particularly pleased to be able to take her ‘70’ balloon home! We welcomed nearly 40 ladies who were attending an Ivy Link event for the first time, seven alumnae who were also former and current parents, nine former staff and some who were both! Friends came from far and wide including Sussex, the West Country, Yorkshire, Norfolk, Leicestershire, Cheshire, Wales, Scotland and one lady all the way from Australia; Barbara Beaumont, who left in 1965.

Amongst our guests were former Old Croydonians Committee members Verity Jones (Bates) 1961, Mary Knight (Hermes) 1963 and Ann Stranack (Wagstaff) 1957 who laid the foundations for the alumnae network on which the Ivy Link continues to build. We were honoured to see one of our GDST Alumna of the Year nominees, Dr Mary Baines (Silver), class of 1950. Mary is Emeritus Consultant in Palliative Medicine at St Christopher’s Hospice and was Co-founder and pioneer of the first hospital-based palliative home care team in the UK, which started in 1969. You can read about her in this year’s Ivy Link magazine here.. The Class of 1950 have met every single year since they left school, usually at one another’s homes and it was a privilege to welcome ten of the group this year.

We were particularly delighted to welcome 22 ladies from the Class of 1968, celebrating 50 years since leaving the school – they were labelled “the noisy/naughty table”! One of their number, Di Clarke (Singleton) wrote:

We were delighted that we spotted Liz Robertson (former staff 1966-2001) at another table, three of us there were in her 1st tennis team. I am always especially pleased when we have a new recruit and convert them! One lady had never been back nor met up with anyone in 50 years! I felt we had met last week, not 50 years ago. She loved it and is going to keep in touch with others in the West Country and have a South West meet-up. I found it particularly poignant to enter the Hall, to see that familiar painting of Miss Neligan that had watched us for years and then followed us from Wellesley Road, to see the wooden lectern that had dwarfed the diminutive Miss Cameron (former head 1960-1974) every morning. All in all a lot of emotion, I have had many emails from my “girls” today and we are all still buzzing and mulling everything over. There is no substitute for old friends, we prove that every time. Looking around our table alone I think Miss Neligan would consider that her battles were not in vain. Even 50 years ago we followed in the formidable footsteps of Dr Adams and Miss Cameron, amongst our 22 we had 2 OBE, one MBE, teachers, doctors, 2 medical consultants, a working actress with a long successful career, successful businesswomen from the legal profession, PR, journalism, a creative jewellery designer . But our chat is about school, friends, the staff, Miss Cameron, Miss Tebble, other hugely charismatic characters who shaped us.