|
The Gathering of SCONES - 30 Years on! |
 |
The idea of a reunion started in the garden of Buckingham Palace in July 2011. We were both invited to the annual Queen’s Garden Party, he for bravery as a RAF pilot in Afghanistan and I for community service in the UK.
My British friend mentioned that 2013 would be the 25th anniversary of our university graduating class. This struck a nostalgic chord within me. A quick mental calculation said that it would be the 30th anniversary of our A level class from ACJC and how wonderfully coincidental that it would also be the 4th Dragon year cycle for many of us!
The idea of a SCONE reunion quickly took root that July summer’s evening when I wrote Facebook messages to fellow SCONEs
Clifford Chan and Sylvia Choo. After all, the genesis of the word SCONE, that has endured for all these years, first began from our class. Clifford and Sylvia were keen and active ACJC student councillors and were fired up by this reunion idea.
They promptly set up a SCONE 81-82 Facebook group. As I was geographically the furthest away, I made early plans to return to Singapore in the summer of 2012. Similarly, a few others who also do not reside in Singapore, like
Lincoln Chee, or are frequent flyers proceeded to block out our diaries for the 28 July 2012.
The rest as they say, is history. Tan Tze Gay and
Chan Beng Kuen (incidentally the only matrimonial pairing from our SCONE class!) generously hosted the dinner celebrations at their palatial residence.
True to the ACS spirit, there was serious and plentiful food and drink, the rousing singing of the ACS school anthem and the partaking of a cake designed to look like the former ACJC crest.
Toh Han Chong, a doyen of our class, designed the commemorative SCONE T-shirt – an honour awarded to him as he was the original designer of the SCONE T-shirt back in 1981- 82. The clear difference about the then-and-now T-shirts was that the current mean of the statistical distribution of T-shirt sizes had skewed significantly to the right! Remarkably, some were still able to fit into and came in their original SCONE T-shirts !
All who attended, including the few that could not make it made generous donations to the Retired Teachers’ Welfare Fund. This is a small gesture of the SCONES’ gratitude to our long –suffering ACJC teachers who had to bear with our adolescent nonsense and pranks and yet in some shape or form, contributed to what we are today. This was truly a night of warm fellowship, nostalgia, reconnecting and remembrance of things past !
The Best is Yet to Be!
Bernard Cheong
London
|
The way we were! |
 |
 |
 |
 |
The SCONES showing off their new T-Shirts! |
Don't think the T-Shirt will fit him now!
|
|