Whilst sorting through some paperwork over the last few days I found this photograph. It was taken almost thirty years ago at my secondary school.
The picture shows just under fifty eighteen-year-olds who were just about to take their A levels. I’m in the back row, fifth from the right. The one with far more hair than is strictly necessary.
There are four or five people on the photo who I am still in touch with but I lost touch with most of them soon after the photo was taken.
But seeing the old photo again got me thinking. We were fifty-odd kids from an average Essex town. Half of our adult lives has been lived through the internet revolution. We’ve seen this rise and fall of Friends Reunited and MySpace and now, surely, most of us are on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. Or, at the very least, have an email address and some kind of Google footprint.
I thought I’d try to find out. I’m going to try to track down as many as possible of these people in the next eighteen months (Why eighteen months? Because in about eighteen months time it will be thirty years since the photo was taken). I want to see how easy it is to find a random(ish) group of fortysomethings on the internet.
I’ve set up a web site (Class of 81) to track my progress. But I’ll report any really interesting findings here too. I think it’s going to be interesting.
If you know anyone with any connections to Clacton or (particularly) Clacton County High School, please let them know about the project.