DISTANCE didn’t come between a group of 18 classmates who were reunited 50 years after leaving school last month.

One of the women even flew all the way from Canada – narrowly missing the volcano dust catastrophe – to meet up with 17 of her old friends from the 1960’s Form 5F at St Albans Girls’ Grammar School for their Golden Jubilee reunion celebration at the Harpenden House Hotel.

When they left school, the girls vowed to meet again in 10 years on the steps of the National Gallery in London, and seven of them did so in 1970 and 10 in 1980.

But as they got older they decided to meet more frequently and celebrated their silver anniversary in 1985 with a total of 13 classmates and a further five lunch reunions followed with the numbers increasing to 19 as more of the missing names were traced over the years.

At their eighth reunion and 50th anniversary celebration, there were 18 of the class present with Rosalyn Brittain flying all the way from Canada for her first reunion since departing from her friends all those years ago.

Some of the classmates still live in the St Albans and Harpenden area, while many are now dotted across the country in places from Carlisle to Wales and Chelmsford to Wiltshire – but they have managed to stay in contact.

Four of the original number have passed away. One of the regulars at the reunions, Avis Evans, died last year and was sorely missed at this year’s event.

Judy Phillips, who now lives near Salisbury, said: “We were there quite a few hours mainly talking and catching up with each other on all the news. We wrote a short piece about ourselves and one of the group is compiling little biogs for us.”

She continued: “I think for our group to stay in such close contact is quite an achievement when people do move away so much these days. We are very proud of having kept in touch and we are certainly a very happy group - when we do meet, we have lots of fun.”