Doing a Google-inspired Happy Dance

Snowbird of Paradise

I am SO happy! I just got an email from a friend I haven’t seen or heard from since the 1970s. We were students together at Bretton Hall College back in the day when we wore bell-bottomed jeans. Isn’t that marvelous? I have been doing the dance of joy in my kitchen.

Bretton Hall College 2
Bretton Hall College

A little while ago I wrote three blog posts (here, here, and here) about the breakup of my first marriage and the friend, Nancy Miller, who came to help and house me. After I had written those posts I went online to see if I could track her down.

Thanks to Google, I found an address for Nancy and her husband, Keith. They had co-owned a business and I found a business directory in which there was a contact address for them, so that’s where I sent a little note card. I told them about the blog posts and hoped they approved.

As it turned out, they had since retired and moved to a different city in Yorkshire, but my note eventually found them. So, thank you to Royal Mail, too! I love it when a plan comes together.

College Friends
College Friends c 1972 Harbans Chana (L) and Nancy Miller (R)

In the email I received today from Nancy and Keith, they said that they had enjoyed reading the blog posts and the comments readers had made. They went on to remind me of some people and places we had in common, and in doing so they searched their memories and came up with the name of the friend in one of the photos: Harbans Chana. I have amended the caption to reflect that new knowledge, even though we are not sure about the spelling of her name. My next task is going to be to try to track down that friend, too. Wish me luck.

While I was wandering around the internet looking for images of Bretton Hall, I came across the video by Keith Davis entitled Memories of Bretton Hall 1971-1974, shown below. He was a drama student there at the same time I was an Art student and, although I don’t recognize any of the people in his pictures, I do remember wearing clothes like that!

Anyway, this story isn’t entirely over yet. Nancy and Keith said when they wrote to me that they have in their possession something that belongs to me! I cannot imagine what that is, but they are going to send it to me. I’ll let you know what it is when I get it. Ooooh. This is so exciting!

 

13 Comments

  4. WOW! What exciting news … you must be beside yourself! I hope that both the reunion and the return of this mystery item will flood you with good memories.

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  7. Hi I was at Bretton Hall college from 1977-1980 studying Drama and Theatre Arts and Dance. I trained to be a teacher and followed a career in teaching for 40 years mostly in London. I am writing about Bretton and have been contacting former students and of course I have several friends from our years at the ‘Special Place’ in West Yorkshire. I/We had the most extraordinary and wonderful time of our lives at Bretton and it changed our lives forever. It would be great to hear about your experiences at Bretton and how it influenced your life beyond.

    1. I am interested in your project and will be interested to read it when it is published.

      The education I gained at Bretton Hall has been enormously beneficial throughout my life. I taught at a secondary school in London for a year before I emigrated to Canada. I taught at a high school in British Columbia before eventually getting two degrees from the University of Calgary in Alberta. Subsequently, I taught at Red Deer College until I retired.

      While at Red Deer I received an award for teaching excellence, an honour I attribute largely to the skills I acquired at Bretton Hall.

      What kinds of Bretton Hall experiences are you most interested in? I’ll see if I can remember more detail for you.

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