An old school friend died in The View from the Terrace

I just discovered yesterday that an old school friend died. I found out quite by accident. I was amusing myself on the internet looking up the ancestors of people I know or used to know and she had a rather illustrious ancestor who was on the Peerage website. On it you can trace right down to the present day and there was her name died 2 years ago.

It shouldn’t really affect me, I’ve only seen her once since I left school, that was at a reunion 20 years ago, but we were good friends for a while. Her name was Elizabeth Percival and she was a direct descendant of Spencer Percival the British prime minister. We were never best friends but she was part of the gang that I mixed with. I was invited to tea at her house once. She had a lovely home overlooking the River Severn in Shrewsbury. The funny thing is my main memory of that visit is that she had one of those 3d viewers, Viewmaster, and we spent ages looking at views through it. Of course I nagged my parents until they bought me one too and I still have it. My children used to love it.

Elizabeth was a diabetic so she was not allowed to eat the school puddings. She would have her dinner and then take out an apple or other fruit and eat it while we tucked into jam tart or treacle pudding, I felt so sorry for her but she never seemed bothered, she had a very easy going personality. I remember an occasion when I forgot to take my sports shoes to school and was told to sit out because, as a child, I had to wear special heavy lace up shoes with a strap on them for my flat feet. They didn’t make the slightest difference except that I got teased because I couldn’t wear the latest Start-rite sandals like everyone else. On that occasion the gym mistress rather nastily said, ‘Well you can’t play in those.’ Another girl who had also left her shoes at home was allowed to play because she was wearing sandals. It didn’t seem fair, I always seemed to be the odd one out and I was feeling sorry for myself, even though I didn’t like sport. I went to sit down when I saw Elizabeth so I sat by her.
‘ Did you forget your shoes too?’ I asked.
‘ No,’ she said, ‘My leg is playing up from the injection again.’ She had to have insulin jabs every day.
‘ Oh that’s awful.’ I replied but she just casually said ‘Well it get’s me out of sport.’ and I laughed and was impressed by her positive attitude.

The last time I saw her was at a class reunion 20 years ago. It was the year we all turned 50 and the only reunion we have had. She was the same happy easy going person she had been at school. Hearing about her passing has brought back a lot of memories.

Last updated March 12, 2017