Bembridge School - Bas & Miles 1964

friends

There’s something quietly remarkable about friendships that endure across decades. I recently sat down with my old school friend Bas—now living in Sydney—for a conversation that spanned forty years yet felt like no time had passed at all.

We found ourselves transported back to Bembridge School on the Isle of Wight, where we spent our formative years in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Boarding school life then had a curious blend of austerity and enchantment—freezing dormitories with ice on the inside of the windows, the five "houses", and house ties that marked your allegiance. It was, in hindsight, a kind of Hogwarts before Rowling imagined hers.

Our chat meandered through the odd rituals that shaped us: nicknames so entrenched that real names were practically forgotten, the infamous “Island Walk”—a 30-mile overnight trek through darkness—and ghost stories that haunted us in the best possible way. These shared rites stitched us together, forging bonds that have somehow survived time and geography.

Music was a lifeline. Bas credits ABBA with getting him through boarding school, while I remember The Jam as the soundtrack to our adolescence. Those songs weren’t just background—they were emotional anchors.

What struck me most was our shared sense of what Bembridge gave us. “It taught you respect,” Bas said, and I agreed. Independence, resilience, and a kind of emotional literacy that’s hard to quantify but easy to recognise. Though the school itself now stands empty, its legacy lives on in us.

This conversation wasn’t just nostalgic—it was affirming. Proof that the past isn’t lost, just waiting to be revisited with someone who remembers it too.

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