This summer has been special to me. Not only have I reacquainted myself with old school friends but have also revisited the old school site.

It was 40 years since I had last set eyes on Woolverstone Hall, where I had spent five formative years of my life. Like most boys who had boarded at the school the first thing I wanted to do at the end of my time was to get as far away from it as possible. This I did quite successfully, living abroad for several years of my life.

It seemed strange this August to return after so many years to attend a lunchtime meeting with some of the masters who had been so instrumental in shaping the individual I had become. It was really quite easy to talk to them, exchanging memories and asking questions I dared not ask all those years ago. It seemed unreal, yet reassuring that with all the boys who had passed through the school they still remembered me. I tested them and they genuinely did. They seemed exactly the same albeit older and not so tall as I remember, but in fact the oldest master was only some 20 years older than me. Where had 40 years of my life gone?

After contacting Jim Atkinson, a good friend of mine at school as well as afterwards in London where we both started work, we arranged a sailing weekend at Woolverstone with Peter Brown, another good schoolfriend. After that, it took little persuasion to get Chris Snuggs to join us. Even though he professed to not having any sailing skills he surprised himself (and us!) over the weekend with his natural ability at the helm of a sailing yacht!! It was after gathering this motley crew that the reunion concept took shape. The rest is history.

Well, it was a unique weekend, very moving. Forty years ..... I had never properly said goodbye to the teachers, and hadn't had any contact since 1964. We all looked older of course, but the Old Guys were surprisingly 'young', sprightly, full of humour and fascinating conversation.

I can't separate out the reunion itself from the sailing, since the first stemmed from the latter, and having met the Old Masters for Friday lunch at the Butt and then for coffee at Derek's we spent much of the weekend thinking and talking about the experience while we were sailing up and down the Orwell - AND out into the North Sea!

And of course, I hadn't met my sailing companions for forty years either! How did we know we'd even get along? And yet we did. Shared memories helped, but so did the circumstances, the scenery, the beautiful weather, the good-natured banter. Four quite different personalities, but which seemed to complement each other, and of course with Peter as the consummate, considerate host. Yes, it was a really quality weekend, relaxing, civilised, good sailing (just enough wind), fine food, both the improvised lunches and the more elaborate evening sorties.

Two things in particular helped make it so special for me - the very warm welcome we got from the Masters and the immediate acceptance and encouragement the other three extended to me as an absolute novice sailor, having been a WHS cricketer all those years back.

Thanks Old Boys. Thanks Old Masters.

I drove into Pin Mill and parked behind the Butt & Oyster and, as I stepped out of my car and joined my former Housemaster and those others who helped shape my adolescence and mind half a century ago, I experienced my first physical sense of time travel. Nothing had changed. Nothing in view from the Butt & Oyster's forecourt had not been there 40-50 years ago, and nothing of the old had gone.

Later during that weekend, sailing down the Orwell on Pete's boat, I couldn't believe that nothing had changed along the entire length of the foreshore from Woolverstone to Shotley. Having left Woolverstone 40 years earlier, travelled the five continents, had a life and grown old(-ish), I was back where it had (mostly) begun and it was only me that had changed (and Pete, Mike, Chris ... in body but not in spirit!).

The Old Masters were amazing. They may have aged a bit, like us OBs, but their characters and personalities were instantly recognisable, and the zest was pretty much intact. All my life I had never had a proper anchor on terra firma, until I realised during that weekend that my anchor was Woolverstone. Sad? Maybe, but exhilarating nonetheless to get back and find everything just as it used to be.

After 40 years, chance brought me back to living opposite the School and sailing once again from Woolverstone.

This return to childhood roots was reinforced by a reunion of colleagues prompted by a note from Michael Bysh that bought the four of us together 40 years after our last meeting!

I lead a somewhat hectic life in the Toy Industry, but most weekends look forward to escaping from the trials and tribulations of everyday life and getting back to Woolverstone on a Friday evening.

The peace and tranquillity offered by the area is outstanding, and by comparison with other areas little has changed since we were at School. What also has not changed much are our "Old Masters", who seem remarkably well preserved and in good health.

Meeting them after such a long time was a very special moment for the four of us.

Flair plc - Peter's toy company

Forty years .... we kept saying it to ourselves as if we couldn't believe it. Forty years since we'd met either each other or the Old Masters, as we came to call them. So much had happened to us all since, yet in many ways it seemed like yesterday that we'd sat in Stretch's French class, gathered round Ben Turner's workbench or listened to Derek telling us a story as we gazed out of the window onto that glorious games field in front of the school.

Actually, it wasn't quite true, as Peter Brown had recently invited Michael & Marjorie Shakeshaft to dinner since buying a house in Nacton, and it was Peter's original idea to combine a sailing weekend with a reunion lunch for some of our old teachers. Some quick-fire mail and phoning ensued, and we ended up filling the Smoke Room at the Butt and Oyster with 16 old boys and masters.

After a delightful lunch in the once-out-of-bounds Butt we repaired to Derek's house nearby for coffee on the patio. For all of us, it was a very moving but also relaxed and enjoyable occasion, lots of anecdotes, lots of good will, expressions of regret that we hadn't done it before and ambitious plans to do it again on a bigger scale next year!