It was probably the last time they’ll ever meet up again—but nearly 200 pupils from a former girls’ comprehensive school going back half-a-century turned up for their final reunion in a pub in London’s East End from half-way round the world.

The women who arrived at Stepney Green’s Half Moon pub for a chinwag about the old days all went to Tower Hamlets School for Girls from 1964 to ’86.

The reunion marked 50 years since the opening of the comprehensive which had the motto “Educating Women of the Future”.

Many of the “women of the future”—some now in their 50s and 60s—arrived from abroad, as far and Miami and Canada. A former teacher even turned up from Columbia in South America who happened to be in London for a wedding, so the reunion was just right.

“It’s all been so difficult to organise,” said Bee Duncan, now 50, a pupil from 1967. “So this is probably our last reunion.

“I managed to reach 300 ex-pupils when we set up our own Facebook page—so at least we can still keep in touch, even if we don’t manage another reunion.”

The school in the Commercial Road became Stepney’s present Mulberry Secondary for Girls in 1986.

But the reunion was specifically for the ladies of 1963-86. Mulberry held its own celebration.

The former London County Council school opened in 1964 to meet a shortage of secondary places in the East End, then came under the new Inner London Education Authority when the LCC was abolished in 1965. It was reborn as Mulberry School when the ILEA in turn was abolished in 1986 and came under Tower Hamlets Council for the first time.

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Last-ever reunion for Tower Hamlets School for Girls, 1964-86