In March 2011, three Hywelians (plus a German exchange partner, who briefly boarded at Oaklands, so technically she is a Hywelian, too!) went back to school for the first time since they left many years ago.
Dr Trudie Fraser, who has been a lecturer in Roman history at the University of Melbourne, was in Britain visiting her mother, and she made arrangements to visit school with her friend Renate Sperling, who became a teacher of English and French in Germany. Trudie left HSL in 1960, having boarded on Oaklands and then Bryntaf, and Renate was briefly at school in 1957. Their visit happened to take place on March 1st, so they were able to eat Welsh cakes and watch part of the Junior School Eisteddfod celebrations. They spent almost the whole day in school and both contributed to Year 12 and Year 13 lessons, in Classics and German respectively, as well as touring the school and having lunch. They both enjoyed the atmosphere and marvelled at the facilities today, while Trudie recalled a number of stories from her time as a boarder. Amazingly, Trudie’s 92-year-old mother drove them to Cardiff from her home in Northamptonshire!
On 7th March, Margaret Stark and Caroline New, who have stayed in touch since they left in 1964, spent the afternoon at school. Margaret is a member of the clergy and lives locally. Caroline lives in Bristol and still teaches philosophy at evening classes there. Both admired the facilities today’s students enjoy and remembered many details about the building and rooms from their schooldays, as well as reminiscing in a most entertaining way about lessons and the members of staff who taught them. Their visit was all too short but they had time to look around the Senior School.
Mrs Sully, who now looks after the school archives, was delighted to show both sets of visitors around and hopes that they will not wait such a long time before returning again!