All that will survive of us is love. So said some bald poet with paedo glasses from 1960’s society, who I happened to read at a school in the Midlands many aeons ago.
And I am thinking of these famous words in the pressing moment the photograph is snapped. Forever frozen in time and space. Twenty-five fellow souls are huddled together in a remote forest clearing, in the back and beyond wilderness, in the rugged ever-changing seasonal landscape of the New Forest.
The photo frames what could be portrayed as something of a tribal gathering. Old Uni mates roughly assembled in front of the phone camera lens with partners and next gen offspring – kids, teenagers, and young adults – grinning for this spontaneous snap and a vocal yelping of ‘Cheese’.
Six family clans bought together for this chill February weekend, having travelled from all four points of the compass, from across the Island, to be here in this moment. To share company, break bread, and inhale the strong wafting scent of nostalgia carried on the fresh wilderness air.
Nostalgia weighs heavy on my soul, yet light in my heart, as I walk in tandem with the fellow clans through the not-so-New Forest, kicking through bales of dried Autumnal leaves like a carefree kid. The thickets of forest are bathed in half light and long shadows, and the walkers are managing small snippets of deep conversation while avoiding the thick gloopy mud and puddles underfoot. The teenage lads are kicking a muddy football up the track, and others are holding their phones in the air checking GPS signals for the hidden path back to the Youth Hostel we are crashing for the weekend.
I am feeling nostalgia. Nostalgia for those formative years, when as young impressionable students the world represented a juicy oyster waiting to be shucked. Where we forged white hot bonds of peace, love, and unity. Fell in-and-out of bars and beds. Raved all night to free party techno sound-systems. And travelled to all corners of the globe, searching for missing pieces to the jigsaws of our prodigal souls.
Hours later, as the sun sets on the New Forest heathland and the shadows of night draw in, so the drinking, mingling, and partying begins. The reception to the YHA is transformed into a high street sports bar, and as the Six Nations kicks off, it brings out the lair, banter, and tribal loyalties of those present. Before things get too messy, an all-you-can-eat curry buffet is laid out, with enough nan bread to tile a bathroom. The reunion, revelling, and raucous party games continue well into the wee hours.
As the hangover descends like a low-lying cloud the following morning, swigging from a bottomless mug of coffee, I reflect on the long thirteen years of self-imposed exile spent in the Trenches. Time is truly a healer, and this Class of 92’ reunion tastes all the sweeter for this. And I wonder again, in the words of the dead poet society, whether maybe all that will survive of us is love.
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