Reunion or not reunion that is the conundrum?

Before I go any further with this particular Blog I want to make it absolutely clear that meeting old friends, acquaintances or old comrades is not such an ordeal or as unpleasant as some may think may be. I will confess that I for one have had, in the past, some misgivings about striking up that old long forgotten friendship from 40 years ago.

Sometimes on a very rare occasion you take the step and you suddenly realise that what was not a friendship at all but a period where you both hatred each other with mutual, but disguised, vigour both in the past as well as in the present.

Fortunately this is a rare event and of course you would not allow this animosity to show when sitting face to face at the dinner table or while drinking at the bar with this former colleague. Again, fortunately, it not always like that as I was able to witness for myself on a bleak weekend in April when I attended my annual regimental reunion.

I sat with a group of fellow ex soldiers all of us shouting over the throb of voices to make ourselves heard, craning towards each other to catch the words in our ageing ears and discovering new friendships and reigniting old ones. At times I struggled to recognise the 75 year old former comrade who I last new as a 26 year old soldier yet he able to remember the smallest of my existence when I was only still in my teens.

All I can say is that meeting these men and sharing the time with them over a meal and a drink is the finest thing that you can do.

So, the answer is... Reunion? Yes!